


Sunstroke

by ballvvasher



Series: Son Of Mine [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Bodily Functions, Body Horror, Chapter One is pretty much the extent of the non-con, Drama, Enemies, Force-Sensitive Hux, Forced Bonding, Forced Pregnancy, Hux is Not Nice, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, M/M, Medical Torture, Mpreg, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rape/Non-con Elements, Real bonding, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Assault, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-07-27 12:34:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7618303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballvvasher/pseuds/ballvvasher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Supreme Leader Snoke gives Kylo Ren a mission to strengthen the Knights’ of Ren hold on the First Order. Set several years before the events of Episode VII. Story contains mpreg, medical torture, and sexual assault.</p><p>(If you don't want to read the graphic assault and medical torture, I've updated Chapter 2 with a summary describing what happened because the assault mainly happens in Chapter 1, so feel free to skip Chapter 1. The rest of the fic does occasionally refer back to it, though.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains mpreg as one of the main plot points. Like, I frequently refer back to it and it’s a topic of graphic description so if this squicks you then please stay far, far away. The sexual assault/torture is also graphic but only occurs once in the beginning. Ren and Hux are NOT good people!

 

 

The halls of the Finalizer are lifeless and hollow, inhabited only by the required amount of personnel tucked away in operations. Just as a hunter breathes blood on the wind, Kylo Ren, unreflective along the durasteel walls, glides along a thread of dark Force energy through the officers’ residences.

Snoke had one imperative. It’s time for Ren to have an apprentice of his own, born from the heart of the rising Order. Ren approaches Colonel Hux’s quarters, under strict orders to take him willingly. And most essentially, quietly as to not make a scene.

How curious that the colonel holds his standards of grooming and physical presentation so highly, yet lies completely nude between silken sheets during sleep-cycle. “Get up.”

In his unexpected stir from sleep, Hux is unable to hide the surprise from his pale eyes. “What is it?” As if this is routine, as if Ren barges in his rooms in the middle of his rest to alert him of various Order emergencies. Hux allows himself few hours each cycle to sleep, so this interruption is most objectionable.

“Leader Snoke wants a meeting. Get dressed,” Ren orders. “I’ve alerted your crew that you will be away for the next few days.”

At the mention of the Supreme Leader, Hux swallows dryly around his protest.

Ren has always jumped on every chance to bark orders at him. Snoke most likely would have been patient enough to at least await the end of the sleep-cycle, but with Ren as the messenger on this occasion Hux’s well deserved rest falls victim to his petulancy. “Give me time to get ready.”

“We need to leave right away.” Ren leaves no room to argue, and makes no move to give Hux any privacy. This hardly bothers him. The freak probably hasn’t seen anyone’s genitals but his own, and perhaps surfing the uncensored holonet on lonely evenings. The filth of free press, as warranted by the chaotic growth of the New Republic, is certainly something Ren will have to live without once the Order gains full galactic power.

Ren’s gaze is undetectable from beneath that ridiculous helmet of his. Hux scowls, slipping from his sheets to his wardrobe, the chill of the recycled air hitting his sensitive regions. Hux dons a breathable charcoal suit, not dissimilar to the colonel’s uniform he wears for his day to day duties. Like all of Hux’s suits it fits rigidly to disguise his slight frame.

Ren escorts him to a shuttle that Control grants him access to without Ren having to apply for clearance. By now they are accustomed to Ren and the colonel’s extracurricular activities during odd hours.

The lull of hyperspace brings Hux to confront his own suspicions. “What’s this about?”

Ren replies with silence.

“Why didn’t Leader Snoke contact me directly?”

Cocksure in his pilot’s chair, Ren remains still.

“Do you keep that saber stuck so far up your ass that it renders you incapable of answering any questions?”

“The Supreme Leader has ordered me to take you to an outpost and forbade me to tell you any details until we’re already there.” His smirk hides beneath the plates of the mask. “But good news. The Knights might have found a use for you yet.”

Hux barely registers the penetration of darkness entering his mind before he falls to the floor unconscious.

Coldness, hardness is what greets his back and shoulders. A shiver rouses Hux as he regains his senses, mutely aware of the change in atmosphere.

“ _Remain calm_.” Hux is anything but as he latches his attention onto the droid bearing likeness to the medical droids of the Clone Wars.

He doesn’t have to be a Force-sensitive to feel the shroud of Kylo Ren standing to attention nearest the wall opposite the droid. His head whips, meeting the mask-less, heedful gaze. “What is this?” Hux croaks, attempting to sit up only to writhe miserably with his hips and wrists bound to the slab beneath. He finds the meat of his left arm covered in several puncture marks, coated in a thin layer of bacta salve. And somehow his casuals have been replaced with a paper-thin white medical gown. “What in the hell is going on?!”

“You’re wrong, you know.”

Powerlessness doesn’t suit him. His only defense is his ability to glare hotly at his captor, wriggling uselessly in bonds under the hand of this psychotic man-child. That’s what one of the highest ranking officers of the First Order has been reduced to. “Ren, you’ve officially lost your mind. Release me!”

“You’re wrong,” He continues. “It does take a Force-sensitive to sense another. No matter how vast the difference is between levels of sensitivity. Of power.” Ren paces close to Hux, unable to keep the satisfaction from his voice. “Keep tugging at those restraints. Something ought to break sooner or later.”

Hux glares more daggers, spitting phlegm onto Ren’s cheek and eye. With a growl, Ren lashes, slamming Hux’s head to the metal slab. His lips curl at Hux’s uncontrolled yowl in protest, mussing that neat wave of red normally combed carefully every morning before deliberations. Ren tugs on the locks so that Hux is forced to arch uncomfortably, exposing the sensitive tendons and cavities of his throat. “That’s better,” Ren punctuates, swabbing Hux’s spit away as an afterthought.

“Whatever sick game you’re playing, Leader Snoke will be sure to hear about it!” Hux’s sticklike legs shake on their own accord within his ankles’ shackles.

 “This is the Supreme Leader’s bidding,” he snaps, showing teeth.

Hux thrashes, hysterical where he’d otherwise be cool. Ren just has the unfathomable capability of plucking each and every one of his nerves!

“I will be taking some liberties with his plan’s execution.”

“What _plan_?” Hux bites, wincing when Ren’s gloved fingers snag his head to the side.

“Our Supreme Leader felt a calling in the Force. It’s time for me to have an apprentice of my own. Raised from birth to be taught allegiance to the Knights and to the Order.” Hux’s bony chest undulates with the efforts of stressful short breaths. “And it comes down to you. Snoke and I, we’ve felt the Force running strong through your cells from the beginning.” Ren can taste Hux’s confusion on his own tongue. “You yourself could never be capable of commanding it. The power is just out of your grasp. Dormant in your genetics…” Hux nearly growls when Ren’s hand turns gentle, massaging his ginger scalp with a smile. “Like a recessive gene.”

In silent protest, Hux snaps his head away from Ren’s invasive touch. Ren removes his hand, a small victory until he waves the offending hand down toward Hux’s legs, unstrapping only to paw them in two gloved fists. How terrifying it is to be on the wrong end of Ren’s tricks. “And your promise of rank makes you the perfect choice to bear our heir.”

Hux can only gape in mute horror as Ren manually guides his legs into the hidden stirrups along the sides of the slab. His mouth catches up when Ren tugs up the gown, baring him fully. “What are you—Stop! This is insane. You’re insane!”

 “He had insisted you would cooperate, but I know you much better than our Leader ever will,” Ren declares. “The more you fight it, the longer it will take. It has to be done. We’ve already made arrangements for your leave from office for the duration of the pregnancy.”

“Your eyes must deceive you,” Hux spits through the chilling fear and revulsion. “I haven’t got the capabilities to even—”

“The system we’re on has resources for that dilemma. Cloners. Miracle workers, really,” he says, motioning for the droid.

Hux panics, grasping at straws. “Ren,” he levels, meeting the depths of his eyes. Attempting to reason with a madman! “If this is his will then we can find a surrogate, because of the risk that— _Ren!_ ” The droid positions itself between the unguarded space between his legs.

“The use of surrogate, or even an artificial womb chamber would be a far greater risk to take. Our child’s strength with the Force would be compromised if _you_ aren’t the one to physically carry it to term.”

Hux groans as the droid’s brushes the cold, wet tip of an unseen probe against the most intimate of body parts. “Ren,” he begs. Pleading to _Ren_ for mercy. A cold day in the bowels of all hells it is.

“ _Remain calm,”_ verbalizes the droid.

“This is far greater than your pride, Colonel.”

Shuddering within his bonds, Hux’s body yields to the droid’s steady insertion.

“This is for the good of the Order.”

“ _Remain calm_.”

“For the galaxy.”

“ _Remain calm. Delivering predetermined voltage.”_

Green eyes round into saucers as the droid electrocutes him from the inside, the shock of the act more jarring than the pain.

“ _Sample not obtained. Remain calm. Delivering predetermined voltage_.”

“Ren! I’ll kill you! _Ah—!”_ It feels nauseatingly unnatural as his body convulses, producing a stream of semen from his flaccid penis onto the taught skin of his thigh. Hissing as the invader’s swift expulsion from his ass, Hux chokes on the hot shame and hatred he seethes.

He can’t speak—the humiliation and degradation of what Ren just inflicted has barred all retort. The med droid seals his ‘sample’ into a vial and leaves them alone in the aching space.

Hux can feel those devilish eyes on him, but holds onto his silence. “The cloners are working diligently with your genetic material so that the transplant can take place later next week.”

“Transplant?” he rasps.

“Of your new womb.”

Ren steps close, dropping to his knees so that their faces are nearly level. “Will you cooperate?” The touch—a tool of manipulation—is uncharacteristically warm atop Hux’s neck. Ungloved, skin on skin. He’s compelled to fix his downcast eyes on Ren’s.

The air around Hux crackles with defiance and abhorrence. His throat dips under Ren’s hand. “I am at the _Supreme Leader’s_ disposal.” He recites his pledge with poison, but Ren takes it as progress. Hux absolutely loathes how Ren dare lay a hand on him, after what he just did.

Ren’s gaze heeds his own, an unspoken challenge. The constricting straps slip loose, and Hux immediately whips his thin fists to swat away Ren’s hand in a final act of self-preservation. Ren allows this, reveling in the little episode of defiance. He feels his colonel’s urge to gouge his eyes with his thumbs through his connection with his adversary.

Ren dismisses himself, wordless, leaving Hux to be tormented by his thoughts.

Hux pries his legs from the stirrups and sits erect, medical gown releasing what little body heat he produces. Supreme Leader has demanded many sacrifices to be made for the good of unity in the galaxy. Overthrowing disorderly regimes often requires the slaughter of innocents, but such acts are imperative in interest of the Order.

It’s going to take a damn long time to wrap his mind around being Ren’s _broodmare_ for the Order and the all mysterious Force that Snoke and Ren babble on about. Ren! That groveling despot! For all he knows this has nothing to do with the Knights or with Snoke. That pervert could just be toying with him in a childish move to belittle and torment Hux out of his position.

The door lifts, revealing a droid much like one of the simple servant droids he grew up with. “ _I’m here to escort you to your quarters for the remainder of your assignment_.”

Across the station, the threat of attack or execution keeps the cloners’ laboratories as active as possible. Satisfied, Ren zeroes-in on Hux’s private feelings. In his mind’s eye he sees Hux, restless and irritable and refusing to sit since his procedure.

Hux should count himself lucky—the droid is programmed for more grueling techniques for obtaining sperm samples. Ren got to perform his own ‘procedure’ in the privacy of a nearby refresher, but Hux could not be trusted to do the same in his volatile state. Besides, Ren advocated for the electrocution method. He’ll soon accept how little of this is his choice, and learn how to adapt when the choice is taken from him.

Sleepless in his new cell—a glorified interrogation room with a complete with a large one-way window, Hux keeps far away from the room’s single cot. In an effort to remain vigilant, he gravitates towards a corner in order to better survey the room. His only means of escape is the blast door. The second, lightweight door on hinges reveals a small refresher stall.

It’s absolutely frigid, and he can’t resist against the clatter of his teeth. After an immeasurable amount of time, the door unseals and the droid enters, carting a tray of bread and stew.

“You will need your energy. Eat.” Ren’s mask is a shadow from the opposite side of the door’s threshold.

Hux barrels past the little droid, causing the stew to splatter all over its hardware. “I will not be your prisoner, Ren!” He just knows that oaf is smirking. “I’ll cooperate, I vowed! Now get me out of this cell. And give me back my fucking clothes!”

“Your behavior is erratic. You will remain here until I sense you aren’t in danger of committing treason.”

“My behavior? _My_ behavior is erratic?!”

Ren passes a small bundle, one Hux had not seen until now, with one gloved fist. “Clothes, essentials. An encrypted datapad to pass the time. Don’t get any foolish ideas.” Kylo Ren knows this instruction is murderous to his counterpart’s pride, and anticipates employing this knowledge to further the objective for the months to come.

By now the little droid is sucking up the spill with its appendage. Hux snatches the sack, searing Ren with his glare.

“You _will_ eat the next meal I bring you. And you are forbidden to leave this room unless you are escorted. By me.”

“Supreme Leader won’t stand for this. I am your equal!”

“You think yourself above me but that school of thought will only torment you here. Accept your fate as willed by the Force.”

“It’s amazing how that helmet intercepts all the shit that comes out of your mouth from ever hitting your ears,” Hux chuckles. “Tell me, Ren, is it a survival mechanism? Because if you could actually _hear_ what you’re saying you’d have certainly killed yourself by now.”

A few unremarkable minutes pass and Hux, having changed back into his casuals, sits alone now, dabbing at his freshly split lip with the discarded medical gown. The droid—still with some residual stew gumming its parts—comes back with a new tray of food and sets it on the cot. Thankfully Ren is nowhere in sight.

The datapad is the only real indicator of time passing, other than the droid gliding into his cell with a tray of some homely meal two more times. On day two of solitary, Hux showers in the tiny refresher. His mind often reverts to thoughts of Ren. Hux wonders if he’s breathing against the other side of that window waiting to violate him with another droid. Clearly he’s not man enough to do it himself.

His brain tormenting him with thoughts of Ren absolutely does not constitute ‘missing’ him. In fact, he’d die happy if he never spoke to the man again. It’s just so indescribably boring in his cell, and he’ll even admit to Ren’s face that he finds entertainment in bearing witness to all his crazed glory. Like watching a wild beast chase its own tail.

Unfortunately he can only stand the two days alone. He won’t make it far at all, but the suffocation of the four walls is unbearable. Having determined the intervals in which the droid enters with his meal, Hux grates the bones of his back to the wall adjacent with the door, waiting.

The door unseals, and he sprints, colliding with the broad, opaque chest of Kylo Ren. “Colonel, this is pathetic, even for you,” he vocalizes through the mask, seizing Hux’s arm behind him and twisting him around back into the confines of the room.

“Unhand me, _swine_ ,” he grits, and Ren replies with a brutal shove to the duracrete floor. Hux always was certain that given the opportunity, Ren would take all his wretched suffering out on him, one beating at a time.

“The Supreme Leader is going to get what he wants, regardless. Cooperate and you live. Understand?”

“I understand just fine. Get me out of this fucking room! I don’t plan on leaving, like I’d even get very far with your gargantuan self roaming round. Fucking plague.” He doesn’t bother bracing himself for another head-butt.

Ren simply hands Hux the canteen of green slosh, presumably a nutrient supplement, to his crumpled form on the ground—versus chucking it at his face like he’d have expected. He Force-pushes a small crate inside the room, packed with a half-dozen canteens like the one Hux snatched from Ren’s hand.

“I’ll return in a week for your procedure. Drink one of these per cycle.”

Hux glares at the ground, just wanting Ren to fucking _leave_ already. This is hell, he concludes, when Ren leaves him wallowing on the floor in his days-old clothing, prickly stubble on his cheeks, and the bottles of fluid of unknown origin.

“Ten cycles from departure of the Finalizer. Location: Undisclosed,” Ren records into the communication unit in his wrist. “The cloners are proceeding as scheduled.  Colonel Hux is compliant.” The message transmits through the interstellar depths that separate Ren from his master.

Ren turns, peeking into the hazy window to the room that only outsiders can see through. He’d have hoped to get a show of Hux practicing some of his little exercises—those sit-ups partnered with Hux’s scrunched expression, or some of those bends and stretches that he does in great quantities. Unfortunately all Hux does is sulk and comb his red tangles with thin fingers.

Ren’s always had an eye for the notable strength hidden in the colonel’s slightness. And he’ll admit to himself that getting his hands on Hux today had awakened a greed for a selfish something he’d never cared to learn the name for. It’s a pity Hux is so aggravating and deceitful. And that Hux detests him. Once Hux learns to serve under him, Ren may allow himself to revisit those carnal interests.

It’s the end of the slowest, most boring week of Hux’s life when Ren returns with a fresh medical gown. “Put this on.” Ren eyes the discarded canisters, pieces of them, shattered in a small heap as if thrown to the wall farthest from the cot. He makes no comment on this act of defiance.

Ren charges ahead from the cell, and Hux trails behind, padding with bare feet against the chill of the compound’s floor. Still managing to hold his head up and square his shoulders while his mind reels on the forthcoming violation.

He spots a curious looking droid, idling in the connecting hall without a proper destination. He supposes it’s one of Ren’s tools. “What’s the assassin droid for, Ren? Seems a bit counter-productive in compound as this.”

Ren halts. “Where did you see an assassin droid?”

Hux stiffens. “Over there. Haven’t you got any security?” Ren says nothing. “Are you telling me it’s just you and your glow stick we’ve got as defense?”

“Stay here.” Ren stalks off, igniting his lightsaber. He returns shortly, and if it weren’t for his helmet there’s no doubt Hux would be able to see the steam coming from his ears. “There was nothing, as I expected. Stop stalling and follow me.” Hux loathes Ren for making him distrust his own two eyes.

They stop at a door that opens without Ren touching anything. Hux takes in the details of the room, an observatory looming over a humungous operating room, visible through a thin window of transparisteel. Hux swallows around a lump of fear, the reality of the impending events crashing onto him.

Ren is deliberating with a human surgeon, identity hidden behind her surgical mask.

“I want to speak with Snoke.” Ren hardens at Hux’s interruption. He turns, scrutinizing the paper gown clad colonel with the plates of his mask.

“He’ll order me to kill you if you defy his will,” Ren growls.

“I thought I was invaluable to him?”

“All we need is your body. Destroying your mind would hardly take any time or effort at all.” It’s a threat, although empty. Ren finds Hux’s mind to be quite the plaything. “And you won’t defect,” Ren adds. “It’s not who you are.”

Ren paces downward into the operating theater, fully expecting Hux to follow like a well-trained dog. “You'll be under for the duration of the operation.” Ren faces Hux, hovering in the doorway. “It's alright to be afraid,” Ren placates through his vocabulator. He implores wordlessly for Hux to sit on the block, which he does, on shaking legs.

Ren remains in the observation room for the duration of the transplant, monitoring to ensure the colonel is properly maintained.

He senses the panic in the lead surgeon as the attending medidroid informs her through the observatory comm. “ _There appears to be a complication. The patient has been weakened due to the shock to his circulatory system and the hormonal balances.”_ The droid tilts its head. “ _Perhaps if we keep him under and run more tests, we can get his body to accept the transplant so it may behave as if it were his own. But I'm afraid this would take several more weeks, Sir, if we are to ensure our treatments are effective enough for the organ to be of any use for the duration of the pregnancy.”_

“We don't have any more time to waste,” Ren addresses the surgeon. “Clean him up, full healing on all surgical wounds. Keep him unconscious.”

“But sir,” She’s clearly concerned for Hux’s wellbeing if she feels so inclined to stand up to Ren. “There is the possibility the patient's autoimmune response will damage—”

“I won't repeat myself,” he bites through his mask. “Bring him to recovery. I'll get what I need.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary of Chapter 1 (the only chapter that contains graphic sexual assault): Kylo Ren kidnaps Hux and brings him to a faraway cloning facility to forcibly impregnate him using the cloners’ science, enthusiastic in his conquest because he enjoys the power and was told by Snoke that their child would be his apprentice. The assault consists of electroejaculation via droid, then the droid picking up the sperm sample with Ren orchestrating the entire thing in order to please his master. Hux is entirely non-complicit until after the assault when he succumbs to the abuse when he realizes that this is for the good of the First Order and that disobeying Snoke will only result in termination. The impregnation is done so in a laboratory and isn’t as violent of an assault as the electroejaculation, but is still very much against Hux’s will and his autonomy.

 

 

Hux startles awake, chest heaving as if he finished fifty training sprints. He's in a different room from all the others he had the unfortunate occasion of being escorted to, atop a large bed and still fitted in that blasted medical gown. Thankfully he's unrestrained, at least.

“Don’t attempt to get up.”

Hux glares at the dark space by the foot of the bed. It takes him a moment to realize that Ren is not in the room, and he's spoken through his mind like his commlink has been implanted in his brain, along with the heinous _womb_ that violates his anatomy. He pulls up the gown, disregarding all modesty. This must be nothing more than a dreadful, psychotropic dream, he thinks, as he takes in the unmistakable swell of his abdomen. There’s nothing in his stomach to vomit.

Surely enough, Ren shows himself, and nonsensically Hux notes that ridiculous fluff of hair as more voluminous than Hux remembers.

_Don’t do that_ , he thinks, without thinking. It’s clear to Ren he means speaking through his mind.

“It looks like it went rather well, don’t you think?” Hux croaks. Near tears, not for the first time.

“Roll over. Get on your side,” he orders, sounding burdened as if he has to shift through a deck of old holodisks for a research project.

Hux pales, mind jumping to a single horrific conclusion. “Get the droid in here to do this part!”

Ren ignores this, stripping off his gloves and outer robes. “Don’t flatter yourself. You need healing those machines can’t give you.” His idea lacks confidence. Similarly, Hux has no idea what he’s talking about.

“How did I…” he groans, unable to utter much else.

“I had the medics sedate you for a few weeks. The gestation will be almost four times faster for than that of a human female pregnancy.”

The young colonel sits back, pawing a palm across his cheek in want of a shave. The hair is abnormally thin there, and Hux sums it up to whatever feminizing concoction Ren inflicted on him. He complies, facing away from Ren in his paper thin gown that he hates, however, not nearly as much as he hates Ren. Weeks of lost time. This type of loss is a new, jarring sensation. “Why did you—”

“You were in pain,” Ren barks, as if the statement enrages him. “The professional opinion was to stave off fertilization. But I wouldn’t allow that. We compromised and kept you unconscious to monitor you at the earliest stages.” The mattress dips. “It was safer that way. And I was right.”

That makes Hux’s nose crimp. There’s nothing safe or sane in just about anything Ren does.

Hux stiffens when the mass of Kylo Ren assaults his backside, from shoulders to feet. “Stop moving. I don’t know how long this’ll take.”

“Just do what you have to do, already,” he bites, resigned.

Ren’s arms snake around his middle, his long fingers and broad palms scope the bottom of Hux’s hairless, prominent belly. It’s warm, and Hux eventually begins to relax. Easy to do when you’re about to pass out anyway. The hands remain, protective, and Ren hasn’t said a word.

It’s Hux that breaks the silence. “I don’t feel anything,” he breathes.

Ren pulls Hux’s once-small waist closer to his hip. Hux senses it now, a sharp prick in his abdomen, a not-quite pain. He’s unable to discern if it’s Ren’s doing or this _thing’s_. “Ren, what exactly are you doing?”

“Meditating.”

“Do I really need to be here for you to find your inner peace? Can’t you knock me out like you did before?” _So I don’t have to_ feel _you so closely? And you can wake me up when this is over, right before you leave forever._

A chill wracks Hux, unable to find the thought of Ren soothing in the least. Yet, the feeling of Ren’s ridiculously large, destructive hands is at the very least agreeable, and Hux stifles the opposition to disgust as to not project. “How do you know it’s working?” he babbles. “Shouldn’t your doctors be overseeing your little procedure?”

“This is only something we can do,” Ren says, muffled by Hux’s back. Hux smells like antiseptic.

“I’m just lying here like a log,” Hux exasperates.

Ren shifts, considering. “Put your hands low with mine. Reach out, feel its presence and connect.”

When Hux doesn’t move, Ren applies a pressure all over to convince him. “You have to want it, or it isn’t going to work. The organ will deteriorate and the baby will die. Then we’ll have to start all over again. Give me your hand.”

Hux slaps his sweat coated palm down to the backs of Ren’s. Somehow this is more tortuous than his week in solitary.

“Close your eyes and focus.” Hux can feel the low tone of Ren’s voice through his back. Another piece of Kylo Ren to probe him.

He swallows around the revulsion, sinking his fingers between the gaps of Ren’s own.

The little flicker of energy is unexpected. It approaches him, his mind. The more he concentrates the more he’s assured the parasite is a promise of a life form, getting stronger as the seconds fly. The connection is immediate, like a swift electrocution, unlike any sensation describable.

Hux breathes deeply, riding the fresh wave of fear. Not fear of Ren—in the least, nor the wrath of the Supreme Leader if together they fail, but fear towards this parasite swimming in his gut.

Hux doesn’t know the first or last thing there is to know about the Force, yet can feel its influence, as belligerent and impenetrable as Ren himself through this little life form that proliferates within his bowels.

This little one—although only half his—is undoubtedly destined for grand things. The thought is surely his own. But the more Hux thinks about the little creature, the more he wants it to fail, to _die_ , to become nothing more than a rotting tumor that he can expel through another bout of surgery. Nothing made by Ren could ever be good for his mental of physical health. Certainly not some kind of genetic abomination, only brought into the world by Ren’s conviction. Hux being forced to bear it is just another punchline to one of Ren’s never-ending tricks against him.

It does its little squirming motion, that not-pain that Hux can’t describe. He’s disgusted, though admittedly intrigued at its will to move at such a premature level of growth.

He settles, feeling much like a fool for meditating. Or accomplishing a poor resemblance of meditation on his part, with Ren. In a paper gown. He manages to get comfortable enough to fall asleep in the confines of Ren’s steely arms.

Hux wakes, startled—a shameful new habit of his, in the place he left himself only minus Ren and his dreadfulness.

“Comfortable?” Ren quips from the armchair, leaning to the side with improper posture. Like he’d arranged himself like that so Hux will make notice and try to correct.

“I’m starved.” The colonel sits up, and the thick woolen blanket he doesn’t remember tugging over himself slips low. Hux is barraged with the preposterous image of Ren tucking him in for bedtime.

Hux radiates displeasure at Ren Force-pulling over a small cart with more of that awful supplement he’d imbibed the past week. Past week, a few weeks ago. Whatever. Time is meaningless in this purgatory.

“There are more clothes in the wardrobe,” Ren says as Hux downs a bottle.

“I want fresh air. What are we—underground? Some sort of relic bunker?”

“It’s a safe house. No one will interfere here.”

Hux isn’t so sure, a feeling that remains with all of Ren’s ideas. “I’d like to step outside. We can step outside, right? Or is the atmosphere as toxic as it is in here?”

_You ask a lot of questions._ The thought isn’t Hux’s own.

“It isn’t safe for you to be outside.”

“Safe? For me?”

“If anything happens to you—or the baby, we’ll all be doomed.”

_You overestimate your own importance._ That thought definitely is Hux’s own.

Hux tugs on a loose fitness sweater and a pair of slim pantaloons. Odd combination for the colonel yet anything beats the paper gown. He can feel Ren’s sharp gaze when he changes, but fails to catch him in the act when he turns his head around. Hux palms his belly, bulged as if he swallowed five plates of food. “I’m suffocating. That can’t be good for the _baby_.”

Ren looks up, dark eyes unconvinced. “I can sense your vitals are both adequate.”

“Let me out. It’s the least you can do, after everything!”

Ren, the child, shoots up from his chair. “You’re under _my_ command. Accept it.”

He scoffs. Typical Ren! “There’s no point in cooping me up. Get me a rebreather or whatever satisfies you—because I’m finding my way out of here whether you approve or not. Try and stop me, with those fists! See how far your destruction gets you when you end up beating the life out of me and your own creation!” Hux’s in Ren’s face now, close enough to slice himself on Ren’s pike of a nose.

Ren barely misses knocking him over. “I’m supervising the entire time.”

He smirks, triumphant. Idiotically so. He’s celebrating what should be a basic allowance of a military officer of his stature.

After a trek through the conduit-lined hallways of the compound, Ren approaches a door that opens automatically. The light spills from above, and Hux takes each stair carefully upon aching ankles, finding his new center of balance. They step out into the blackened dirt path, manufactured by machines versus beaten by footsteps. Tall greenwood trees scatter the sunlight into a thatched pattern on the soil.

“There's an overlook this way.” Ren, of course, diverts from the safety of the path completely, Hux tailing him in his unlined boots. Hux feels as though the spongy forest floor might swallow him up if he's not careful. Yet, this treacherous woodland is paradise compared to the confines of the cloners’ lair.

The woods break into a clearing, revealing a cutoff cliff with an impeccable view of the planet's expanse of mountainous valleys. From their perch, the crumbling cliff faces peek through the thickness of trees that reach from the tops of the mountains.

“Some view,” Ren remarks over the wind, sounding like any other grunt. Hux hates how Ren can appear so calm, especially after an outburst.

The growth in his belly delivers another worming of not-quite pain. “What system is this?” he asks, manipulating his own concerns. Large swooping birds, golden in the white light, glide from tree to tree down below.

“This planet isn’t given an official name. The Moraband system is in a neighboring sector.”

“In the Outer Rim?” He must have been out longer than he had thought during his kidnapping. More lost time. Somehow he’s not surprised.

Ren sits, ass flat on the dirt. “We needed to be discreet.”

“Since when have you ever done a discreet thing in your life,” Hux mutters no louder than the distant fall of rocks. The air tastes faintly phosphoric, and Hux tries to stifle the deep breaths his chest yearns to take.

“The atmosphere is safe.” Of course Ren can sense changes in his breathing patterns. “So don’t go passing out on me. Just because I could carry you doesn’t mean I want to.”

Hux begins to feel the chill of the torrential winds sink to his bones, not even five minutes after settling. Ren knows, and kicks himself for not bringing Hux a jacket. He has to care, and hates that he has to, because if anything happens to the slight man who somehow still thinks he’s the superior, there will be no future for him as the master of the Knights of Ren. He’s fuming when he stands and drops his shawl over Hux’s twiggy shoulders. “Think ahead.”

Hux’s lips furrow. “I’ve been having trouble thinking for myself lately, thanks to you.”

“We all need to learn our place.” Pouting in Ren’s clothing is a good look for Hux.

“You’re hardly an adult,” Hux squawks, facing the tree line and away from his torturer. “Spare me your wisdom. You feed from whichever hand reaches closest.”

Ren snorts, realizing. “Pot, kettle.”

“Pot, what?”

Ren focusses on the glittering treetops. He longs to snuff what remains of Solo, and using fool-hearted sayings is two steps backwards from doing so. 

Hux nearly tumbles when a seismic tremor knocks his wary knees off balance. Unwanted, Ren supports his frame, as a second tremor wracks the ground beneath them. “What fuck was that?”

Arrogantly, Ren rights him. “Ever felt a seismic quake? They’re common in this hemisphere.”

“ _How_ common?!” Ren’s trapped them on an unstable space rock!

“Common. Let’s get back to the base. It’s engineered against the quakes. I hate when I feel like I’m about to fall through a split in the earth.”

Their sluggish pace back to the compound turns to sprints when an unmistakable sound of an explosion jars the woods, emanating from their destination. Ren ignites his saber.

“Stay here!”

Hux wastes no time arguing. He's portly and off balance, sickened with fear. These feelings must be the result of the treatments necessary to keep the baby. This emoting unnaturally and uncontrollably is easily the most nauseating change to his body.

Blaster fire pierces the stillness and Hux ducks behind a tree, concealing himself. He longs for his own blaster, last seen long before Ren kidnapped him.

A cloaked figure emerges from the door of the compound. It isn't Ren, although from this distance someone who didn't know what Ren feels like in proximity would easily mistake the man for him. The antagonist surveys the surrounding woods with a deft turn of a jaundiced cheek. The man stomps away into the thicket. Hux loathes being so helpless. Where the hell is _Ren!_

Kylo Ren decapitates another assassin droid, frothing with rage that their numbers only seem to grow. His attention is being pulled in every direction, reaching out to the Force for guidance.

Strange. A sensation only to be described as a void in the surrounding living Force permeates Ren’s senses. Instinctually, he follows its pull towards the east hatch where Hux is still hiding.

The overhead lighting units are cut, and a sheet of azure lowlight limits his reliance on visual depth perception. His saber deflects fire from another assassin droid, and disarms it with its own blast.

_Stay where you are._ Ren passes the command to Hux, who in his mind’s eye is pacing around at a distance from the compound.

A small, peculiar ring of light glows from the door to Hux’s old cell. Ren takes another investigative step closer, and a shrill, electronic tone pierces his eardrums. The only warning to the consequential explosion that knocks Ren onto his back, white hot pain lancing his shoulder as it dislocates under the assault of shrapnel.

_Fuck._

Ren’s dazed gaze from the floor lands on the roasting corpses of what must have been the cloners. Their guts are shorn from the inside, eviscerated like animals. An attack that neither an assassin droid nor a motion sensor mine could possibly inflict. But someone armed with a lightsaber. The scorched scene is all too reminiscent of his final encounter with his very first Master.

Whoever slaughtered them had meant to set a trap for him, possibly for Hux as well. His body screams in protest as he stands, owning his pain as fuel for what needs to be done. This is how Kylo Ren thrives.

_“Where are you?!”_ he bellows into the lifeless halls, devoid of droids. Littered with the entombed, bloodstained bodies of the cloners.

His pained echo answers him, and he lurches on a fresh wave of agony.

Out of the left of his eye are four more ominous rings in the archway to the east exit. He homes in on Hux from the outside, still crouched behind a tree.

The telltale acute tone reaches his senses from the wall by his foot, and he knows is that it’s already too late.

_RUN!_

Hux stumbles forward, heels of his palms abrading on the forest floor. He runs as fast as his physically and hormonally imbalanced body can muster.

The next rounds of detonations send a shock through the woods, and Hux trips, slamming right on his heaving belly. He exclaims, tugging himself back up with a supportive hand on his waist. He feels his stomach under his sweater and Ren’s shawl, around and around for signs of damage without a real clue of what to look for. It’s strange enough feeling a semblance of concern for another life form other than himself.

He dares to look back. The door has mangled, unable to be entered or touched. He has no idea how to get back in. He doesn’t even know what system this is. Or where Ren is, if that fool is even alive. He had better not abandon him, alone and bearing his unstable mutant child on a nameless planet in the Outer Rim!

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…_

The thought is not his own. Hux cautiously looks around, gasping when he sees a familiar lump several meters away from the decimated compound.

Hux runs towards him, already out of breath. “Ren!”

Ren answers with a groan, rolling on his back. Dark streaks of blood stripe from his ears to neck. “We need t’get off this planet.”

“Where’s the shuttle?” Hux prioritizes, surveying Ren for apparent injuries. He kneels, fingering the shorn sleeve of his shirt. “Your arm…”

“It’s my shoulder. It’s—I need you to reset— _Agh!”_ Ren yowls over the scrape of cartilage and bone when Hux, without warning, sets his shoulder back into place with a violent yank of his hand.

“Good as new,” Hux smirks, gleeful through his fear.

Ren glowers, heaving breaths through flaring nostrils. “We need to get moving. The shuttle’s just on the other side of the ridge.” He stands, balancing on his weakened legs. He looks down at Hux’s abdomen. “Any injuries? I sense nothing’s wrong.” Nothing is wrong yet he prefers to hear confirmation from Hux.

“We managed to make it out unscathed,” Hux says. Ren narrows his eyes at Hux’s choice of pronoun. “Are you gonna tell me what the hell happened back there?”

“I don’t know. But someone knows we’re here, and wants us dead. Or just you, more likely. They’re deceptive. And clever. Cowards.”

Hux manages not to roll his eyes. “Well, that’s just wonderful. Your force-sensing or whatever you call it would have been useful.”

Irritated, Ren stalks in the direction of the spot he docked upon arrival. “If I could have then whoever did this would certainly be dead!”

Hux follows, equally as irritated. Another seismic tremor vibrates through the soil and trees, and Hux grips the one nearest to him for balance. Ren continues stalking, unaffected.

The trek takes over an hour, and Hux nearly weeps at the sight of their shuttle, waiting for them past the break in the tree line. “Why in all hells did you land so far away from the compound?”

“So that no one would find us,” Ren begrudgingly admits, ignoring Hux’s shake of his head.

Ren activates the release of the drawbridge with a wave of a hand, and once they’re safely inside, Hux drops himself into the copilot’s chair. Ren’s facing away, fiddling with the communications module. “What are you waiting for, Ren?”

“Shut up.”

Hux ignores him. “Quit squabbling and tell me the problem so we can get out of here.”

 “Diagnostics show that everything’s functional but someone’s tampered with our communications,” he snaps.

“What of the navigations? And the sublight—”

“I _said_ everything else is normal. If someone tampered with communications we could be walking into another trap.”

“Then get this thing in the air while we still can! We don’t have much of a choice, unless you’ve got another ship lying around.”

Ren launches the craft upward, grazing the treetops with the hull.

Hux lulls his head backward, relaxing now that Ren has gotten his emotions in check and is piloting their shuttle toward the outer atmosphere of the planet. “How’s this supposed to work now?”

“How’s what supposed to work?”

“This.” He points downward. “The baby. How’s it gonna come out, now that your cloners are dead?”

“We’ll have to find someone to cut it out of you.”

Hux blinks. “Is there anything to eat? I’m famished.”

Stiffly, Ren turns away from the pestering colonel to flip through the navi-computer. As he punches in the coordinates to the closest system that’s civilized enough to have physicians and droids readily available, all power abruptly shuts off. Ren growls like a mutt.

“Do you hear that?” Hux murmurs, eyes rounded and alert.

Ren curses his damaged eardrums. “Be quiet while I try to find out what happened—”

“No! It’s like,” He hisses, standing and shifting towards Ren, frantic. “It’s like a really high-pitched tone.”

Ren wastes no time. He accosts Hux by the hips, flinging them both into the ship’s only escape pod. He manually seals the hatch, detaching from the hull with a mechanical hiss. The vacuum of space swallows the sound of the explosion of their trusted First Order vessel, and they tumble downward along the gravitational pull of the planet below.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I properly warned what this fic is about in the tags and in the author's notes. It saddened me to read some of the comments on this story. Most were awesome though!!!
> 
> If you don't enjoy the way a fic is written, the best way to deal with it is to go to that little 'x' at the corner of your tab, or even hit that arrow pointing to the left to go back a page. There, now the fic has disappeared and you can go back to looking for fics you'd like.
> 
> I pondered a great deal on whether or not I should have changed the beginning chapter to this fic, but decided to leave it as I wrote it initially because I felt it was an important exposition to the story to illustrate the many cruel and awful things darkside-descending Kylo Ren is capable of. Without it I'd have always had that hole in my gut wondering what could have been. I understand the misgivings, believe me, I do, but you can't base fantasy relationships of movie villains on real life morals.
> 
> Comments shaming an author can be very discouraging, and unfortunately I'm used to that type of thing from real life, so I managed to shake it off. But to all fanfic readers out there, your comments do leave a lasting impression on the way an author views their own work. Most fanfics take a lot of the author's personal time and energy. I for one have a very busy personal life but still make time to write because it's my passion, and as an added bonus there's an audience who'd enjoy this too.
> 
> Anyway, I apologize for ranting. I feel like I'm in 2008 again with my unabridged author's notes. Hope you guys enjoy the rest of the fic :)

 

 

 

 

Kylo Ren will not rest until whoever did this pays with their lives.

“Shit!” Hux laments. This is madness!

“It’ll put us down safely.” As always, Ren tries to gain control in an impossible situation. The rubble from what used to be their shuttle shoots to aimless vectors, getting farther away and spinning incongruently through the viewport. Ren attempts to activate the distress beacon of the malfunctioning pod. There’s no indication it’s emitting a proper signal.

Hux is doubled over his susceptible abdomen with his arms wrapped protectively around his head, bracing for impact as his military training taught him. Unable to _begin_ to give Ren’s hapless antics a response.

The layers of atmosphere rumble the pod’s walls as they lose altitude. Reverse-thrusters aid in their descent, and as the chutes deploy they collide with an unidentifiable body of water.

Ren uses the Force to keep their bodies from jostling into the walls when the pod is wrenched to a standstill. Hux shakes Ren off of him to find answers through the viewport. They’ve submerged under clear water, and the shimmer of sunlight illuminating the interior tells him they’re close to the surface. Caught in a reef of some sort, from the bonelike growth silhouetted by beams of light.

Before Hux can put a sentence together, Ren’s igniting that vile lightsaber, saturating the enclosure with its red glow. “Put that thing away!”

“We can’t use the hatch or this’ll flood before we can get out. Stand back.” Hissing through the protest of his shoulder, Ren takes action, jabbing his saber into the metal beneath. The saber sears the water into thick clouds of steam, as Ren carves the oblong port for their escape.

The hull yields to the change of pressure and threatens to capsize. “Oh, damn it all,” Hux groans, plunging into the sea below.

A swooping bird skims and settles on the water, squawking in terror when two gasping strangers break the surface and knock it off balance. It heads off to find another part of the vast sea to rest.

Hux wheezes, unable to help clutching to Ren for support. Ren whips his head around, flipping his sopping hair from his eyes. The closest piece of land is a pale sandbar, not far, but the strain on his muscles from the day’s toll will make it a journey. His good arm paddles while the abused one keeps a hook around Hux’s waist.

The brine washes away the blood of Ren’s cuts and burns, leaving a purifying sting in every crevice. Hux walks without Ren as his crutch when their feet hit sand. They wade in the shallow shores of the sandbar for several meters before the sand is dry, crisp and white in the bleaching sun. Ren slumps to his knees, cradling his bad arm with the other.

Hux prods his stomach with clammy fingers. The little thing isn’t moving. Come to think of it, he hasn’t felt anything since that fleeting moment on the cliff.

“Ren. I think something’s wrong.”

Ren pounds his fist into the sand, breathing laboriously.

“Ren.”

“Give me a minute.” He could really use some quiet after narrowly escaping death several times.

“No. No!” He stomps over the too soft sand to close the distance between them. “You don’t get to have _second!_ This entirely your fault! Every last miserable part of it!” he bellows, punctuating himself with a shove to Ren’s injured shoulder. “You’ve damned us. I’ve absolutely had it with you and your failures, one after the next!”

And Ren just keeps his head down, sulking submissively in an entirely un-Ren-like fashion. Surely trying to guilt him into resending his words, but it absolutely will not work. “And let me guess—you told our crew that we’d be indisposed for months so no one would suspect you kidnapped me.” He spits the salt from his tongue onto the sand. “We’re practically all the way out in Wild Space. We’re utterly hopeless!”

Ren lifts his chin, managing a glare but saying nothing.

“If you had just—used your fucking head we could have coordinated a strategy! Instead of using Snoke’s plan as a ploy to abuse and control and humiliate me, as some sort of pathetic service to your ego! Your decaying self-confidence! We could have had backup, proper security. A second shuttle! A whole damned _fleet!_ And now I’m trapped on this forsaken rock. With _you!_ You obtuse, spineless _rapist!”_

Hux lunges, and with no concern for the helpless lifeform in his abdomen, he strangles Ren with two relentless fists. They tumble to the sand in a heap, Hux fiercely gripping Ren’s neck in his blind rage and Ren thrashing, whipping sand into the air. Ren overpowers him, gripping his elbows hard but careful to not cause Hux any damage.

Ren stands and unclips his lightsaber as if to strike. Sneering, Hux’s eyes glint with challenge. The saber sparks and fails to cast its beam, as Ren feared, and will require maintenance. He barrels past Hux. Hux is comforted to witness Kylo Ren’s brooding. It means he’s struck a nerve.

Ren disappears into the thin trunked trees without a word. Hux doesn’t follow. He sits on the sand, drained, leaning back on his hands and letting the sun baste his sensitive skin with warmth.

After some time watching the waves of the beach, his rage evaporates and dread sets in. Any other day Ren abandoning him would be a blessing. He maintains his vigil, hoping to catch a flash of black through the trees.

Ren returns almost an hour later, lugging some sort of genus of breadfruit and a decapitated fowl. Hux can't imagine how he managed that without the power from his lightsaber. He hates the relief which floods him in seeing Ren again, sure of the disastrous fate that would befall upon him without him.

“If you peel the shell there’s fruit inside. It probably doesn't taste good, but it's sustenance,” he says.

Hux’s expression sours to confusion. Shifting his weight, Ren wedges open the shell to the fruit, tucking the bird in his elbow. “You said you were hungry.” He looks up to study Ren’s face, noting the bruising around his throat. Hux has never seen Ren with such an embarrassing injury, and having been the one who inflicted it upon him Hux relishes the sight.

Catching what's tossed, Hux doesn’t voice his gratitude. Ren gets to work plucking the spindly feathers from his bird. He hasn’t started a fire to cook it with yet. He probably just wanted to go out and kill something.

The bitterness of the fruit is welcoming to his empty stomach. The little life form must still be metabolizing after all, somehow possible with the intricacies of cloning science. “I can't tell if he’s alright,” Hux breaks the un-companionable silence.

“He?” Ren grunts, knowing full well who Hux is referring to. He’s crouching over his catch, removing each feather with finality.

“He, it. Whatever.” Hux lifts his shirt and shawl, lurching toward Ren and prodding his personal space with his bared stomach. “It hasn't moved. Do something.”

“There's nothing we can do for it if we're exhausted. Are you able enough to go collect dry wood and brush for a fire?” Ren requests, civil. Hux is unaccustomed to Ren asking. When Hux doesn't move, Ren stops his work with the fowl and meets his eyes. They're nakedly sullen.

The buzz of anonymous insects fills the spaces between the trees. Hux wants the sounds to cease so he won't feel the threat of a bite or sting in such a disorderly place. Few scraps of wood appear dry enough for a fire, and when he returns with his meagre bundle Ren is fiddling with his lightsaber. The bird carcass is balancing on a large stone that wasn’t there before.

“If we are where you say we are, we might be able to commandeer a smuggler’s ship, or something. It’s possible,” Hux says, in direct contrast from his snide remarks earlier. “I mean, a distress call from an escape pod with a First Order signature? The odds aren't slim someone would send a scout, at least.”

Ren’s lip curls into something resembling a smile. Hux is putting a conscious effort into making himself feel better. Or quite possibly trying to make Ren feel better. Both suggestions are preposterous, and he snorts without intending to.

Hux doesn't find his reaction very charming. “Well, then what's your genius plan?”

“If I concentrate, I can mentally contact Snoke through the parsecs. I've never done it before but I fail to see any other options.” Ren pinches piece of brush in rough fingertips. Hux longs for the days when the feeling of those fingertips on the taught skin of his stomach was unknown to him.

It takes a few tries, but Ren tilts his saber to the side, using the sputtering sparks from a crossguard vent to enkindle into flame.

“How’s that possible?”

“It's possible,” is all he says, and Hux swallows around his parched throat. He sits in the warm sand, exhaustion eating into his muscles.

Hux relieves Ren of his comments so he can focus on nurturing the fire. Once it's at a satisfactory blaze, he sets his bird on a gravely stone. Hux can't fathom how Ren learned to do all this. They've only known each other for a few abrasive years. Ren could have been raised by a horde of Wookiees for all he knows. “I'm gonna find fresh water. Make sure this doesn't burn,” he mutters. “I’ll come back for you, but you need to stay right here. I mean it.”

Hux purses his lips. “Because there are so many places I have to be right now,” he says, palming his overgrowing stomach for emphasis. He’s pleased Ren is taking initiative to give him the things he needs. This is his mess, after all. Hux lies on his side, facing the fire to watch the meat cook while Ren goes off into the jungle. His sodden boots rest close to take advantage of the heat.

Ren’s been gone for hours, and the sky is rich with shades of orange and violet. Hux squints into the fire at the pinch of the skin of his cheeks. How cruel of the sun to provide him with much needed warmth, only to leave burns in its wake. He shivers, swallowing dryly and longing for Ren. Ren, who he disgusts with everything that he is. Hux must really hate himself.

“Hey.” Hux is greeted with the dark visage of a sweaty, dirt-smudged Kylo Ren. He hadn’t realized he fell asleep. Before he could go days without sleeping, relying on stimulants and the force of will. The Ren spawn must be using him up like a human power source.

Cringing at the twinge in his spine, Hux sits up. “What is that?” he croaks.

Ren lugs over a blackened gourd about the size of his head. “The only source of freshwater I found was in a deep ravine. It took some time but I found a patch of these, scooped one out and filled it with water,” Ren says, eying him when Hux scowls and narrows his eyes, as if Ren stepped in something smelly. He’s close to checking the undersides of his boots when Hux finally speaks his mind.

“I can walk, you know. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did,” Ren discloses.

He gets to his knees. Ren’s hollowed out gourd of water is being presented to him like some sort of peace offering. The entire gesture strikes him as thoughtful, and the realization makes him want to run into the jungle and tear the head off a bird of his own. Ren doesn’t get to make amends. With those stupid expressive eyes looking at Hux like a wounded dog. He doesn’t get to feel remorse, or pretend he cares about Hux’s wellbeing so that Hux won’t slit his throat in his sleep.

Yet, the gourd calls to his thirsting throat, but it’s too heavy in his hands. Ren has to guide it to his lips for him when his elbows buckle. It’s lost to him how Ren managed to tolerate its weight, from wherever he harvested it.

Ren settles back into their little campsite, picking at the bones of the fowl on its cooled stone.

“Sorry.” Hux apologizes without meaning to, at the state of the nearly meatless carcass. He shouldn’t _be_ apologizing. The little Ren-ling is absorbing all he eats so it too can grow nearly two meters tall and lug around gourds of water for him.

The mute glow of the stars overhead is the only source of light, until Ren renews the fire with several branches and a robust, dry log. This will suffice through the night.

“Scoot.” The exhaustion is bone deep, and the word enters through his ears as nonsense. His brain catches up when Ren lies in front of him, limbs spilling onto the sand. Facing him, not too closely, Ren brings his hands to the base of Hux’s belly.

Hux doesn’t favor the idea of making eye contact with Ren while meditating. He’s also cold beyond what he can bear in his sweater and pantaloons, and could use the contact. Plus, with Ren as his source of heating he can use the shawl Ren never took back as a pillow. “Can you come and do that from behind? I think it works better that way.” It sounds just as foolish out loud as it had in his head.

Ren looks irritated, but that might just be his resting expression, and shifts into the position Hux favors. He tugs him close, sensing Hux’s discomfort in the cold. His hands cradle, low and broadly, drawing movement from the baby. Hux grits his teeth when the little one kicks, or punches, jarring his lower ribs. It was probably waiting for Ren all this time. Not hurt or scared at all. Just waiting for its creator to return.

“This thing is gonna rip itself right out of me,” he sighs. “Calm it down, would you?”

He gets a soft snore in reply. Wonderful.

Hux closes his eyes, and drifts into unconsciousness with Ren’s arms constricting around his abdomen. There’s no reason to waste a perfectly good heat source.

That night Hux dreams of a curious little boy sitting alone around a fire much like the one Ren had made for him. Hux can’t see his face but his arms are marred with scars that stripe to his elbows. The rest of his dream fades to sensations of renegade combatants and frigid, black barrenness.

 

\--

 

They awake before the sun does, the planet’s cycles longer than those of the Finalizer. Ren kills another bird and presents it to Hux. “I need to start meditating, to contact Leader Snoke. Can you manage cooking this?” asks Ren, sincere.

“I can manage.” Hux’s irritation brims in his hunger. “And you’re absolutely sure there’s no civilization on this system?”

“Just the sanctioned outpost. There hasn’t been a dominant species here in eons. And we need to stay by the pod’s crash site in case someone picked up our distress call.” Ren scratches the beginnings of his little moustache. Hux’s stomach rumbles, urging him to not prolong the argument.

“I’ll be down the beach,” Ren mutters. He leaves Hux to defeather the fowl, and finds a tranquil spot about a click away from Hux. He sits atop a large boulder, smoothed with erosion. It’s far enough that Hux’s rapid-fire thoughts won’t abate his concentration.

He’s never tried contacting Snoke before through the bond that had existed ever since he could remember. Snoke would always appear within him, within his consciousness without warning or provocation.

If he accomplishes the overwhelming task of aimlessly projecting himself into the expanse of galaxy before him—this would be proof of his unparalleled power. And Snoke would surely send them the help they need, and his child will be brought into the universe safely—a new generation of powerful and valiant Skywalkers. He won’t repeat the mistake of leaving his child to a life of squalor on a desert wasteland planet, or to be brought up brainwashed by the deficiencies of the Republic and Jedi servitude.

Without intending to, Ren’s concentration is muddled when he senses Hux’s calm. He only allows himself a moment to skate along Hux’s thoughts: visions of great, immaculate structures and nostalgia for an empire found upon valor and loyalty. The vision is very enticing. Ren will admit to himself that Hux’s devotion to authority and to the Order presents him to be a positive influence in his child’s life.

However, they only have about another month to get off this planet and to a proper surgeon. Ren absolutely cannot fail this time.

Half the day melts away, and Ren can no longer deny the bite of hunger and thirst. He makes his way back to Hux, who is standing in the water, letting the waves sink him in the sand. The wind whips his red hair to every angle.

“I'm going back to get more water.”

Hux doesn't turn around. “What, you want a hiking partner?” he says, condescending.

“You could probably use the change of scenery.”

“You're very thoughtful lately. Is it the guilt, or the self-pity?”

“A little of both, actually,” he admits.

Hux laughs, forgetting all the shit Ren’s done to him in that instant. “Lead the way. But I'm taking a piss first.”

Spinning on his heel, Ren heads to the tree line. Hux relieves himself against the base of a tree, while Ren carefully averts his gaze. It's an absurd curtesy. He's already violated Hux, having given him little choice in his own biological autonomy. If the tables were turned, Ren would have ripped Hux’s throat out by now. He's not sure why Hux hasn't done so to him. Likely, he's waiting for the opportunity to arise, once they find rescue and he has no use for Ren’s survival skills.

“It's dangerous, the tree roots. You need to watch your step, or step where I step.”

“Mhm.” Hux attempts to stifle his wheezing breaths. “What happened to the seismic events?” as if Ren would know. Though, Ren often knows a lot more than he lets on.

“We're a lot closer to the planet's equator. The events are in the mountainous regions in the southern hemisphere,” he says.

“And your shoulder, how are you carrying that with your injury?”

“I can manage.”

“Well, let me carry it for now. I'll let you carry it back.”

“I've got it. Just focus on not tripping and falling.”

“You know, you've been telling me what to do so often. I might consider this obsessive management your own strange way of caring for me.”

Ren ignores Hux’s cheeky remark, because it’s simply false. They reach the ravine Ren spoke of. “Let me do this part.”

Hux looks down at the daunting cliff faces. “Well, only because you're the hero.”

Ren scales downward, testing each step along the rocks with the toe of his boots. Disappearing past where Hux can see.

 _Hold out the gourd and I'll lower it down from here._ The suggestion materializes in Hux’s mind, and he complies, patient for Ren’s Force-lift to take effect. It lowers as if dropped on the surface of a moon with a low gravitational pull.

After several minutes of Hux eyeballing the shadows in the flora for potential threats, another thought materializes. _Hold your arms out._ The now full gourd rises and he grips it tight, determined to keep it steady. They make quite the team, irrigating with hollow vegetables.  

Hux shouts expletives when the ground quakes, hugging the gourd against the flat of his chest. “I loathe this place,” he hisses to himself, as the quakes subside. Ren was wrong about the quakes. What more is that idiot wrong about?

He can only stare in shock as several slices of rock from the other side of the ravine tumble downward where Ren got the water.

Setting the gourd down, Hux takes tentative steps to the edge, eying down for a spot of black. Ren is nowhere in sight.

He squints into the chasm. Ren always shows up unexpected and unwanted, no matter the time or place. Hux wishes he could reach out with his feelings like Ren does. All he has is the awareness that Ren is somewhere close by.

Like every other uncertain moment of his and Ren’s horrible adventure, Hux can only sit in the dirt and wait for Ren to return. If he ever does. His stomach has ballooned more since yesterday, skin tugging tight beyond what it has ever stretched before. And of course he’s famished again.

Curse Ren for making him sick with worry for his fate, for the fate of Ren’s creation, and even for Ren himself!

“I found an easier way back up, now that some rocks had fallen,” says Ren, several meters from where he’d first descended.

He stabs Ren with his glare. “You could have told me you didn’t get pulverized by boulders!”

Ren regards him, raising an arrogant brow. “You didn’t call out for me, and I sensed you were unharmed. Troubled, as usual, but unharmed.”

There’s a knot in Hux’s throat he can’t swallow down. This is what Ren does. He makes him out to be the weakling for thinking logically, turning his feelings into toys. Abusing him for no other reason than because he can. More proof Ren is poison, for him, their mutant child, for the Order. He knew this from the beginning, and their recent exploits together have only proven this fact. What Hux needs right now is another seismic quake to make Ren stumble backwards into the ravine and break his neck!

Hux stalks off back to the campsite with the water without another word, blaming this pointless bout of emotion on the imbalance hormones from the modifications from the cloners. The life form kicks restlessly with his change of pace and tears of discomfort and frustration blur his eyes.

“Slow down!” Ren shouts, dodging the roots. “Hux!”

“Don’t call me that!” He attempts to outrun his tormentor, bruising the shell of the gourd with the might of his grip.

“Don’t call you your name?”

_“Yes!”_

Ren scoffs, nearly tripping on a root.

At the campsite, Hux radiates contempt. Ren steers clear from him. He goes back into the jungle and drops off more breadfruit and a bushel of smooth citrus for Hux, who has resumed his lonesome wading in the shallow of the beach.

Ren leaves the collection where he knows Hux will find it quickly, steering clear to give Hux much needed space. And Hux calls _him_ the emotional one.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

The first rainfall comes sparsely. The passing storm sweeps past their campsite, inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Accustomed to the rain on his home planet Hux welcomes the drizzle, sitting idly in the sand with the sleeves of his sweater tugged over both hands like mittens.

They fall into a rhythm: Ren collecting fruit and decapitated birds in the morning (Hux still hasn’t got a clue how Ren accomplishes that distinctive method of killing without his lightsaber), meditating throughout the afternoon and night, taking breaks to fetch the water. Hux spends his days splashing in the shallows, squinting at the swooping birds until they resemble TIE fighters. They both sleep around the same fire but Hux hasn’t asked to spoon since that first night. The baby hasn’t needed it, is his excuse.

On day five, Ren points out the redness that stains Hux’s once porcelain skin. “You should spend more time out of the sun. The forest has a canopy. ”

“I don’t like it in there,” Hux spits, toweling himself with the shawl after finishing a bath in the sea. “You’re in the sun all day,” he adds, accusing.

Ren paws his hand through his hair. Hux’s sunburn is much worse than his, a symptom from his lifetime spaceside. “What’s wrong with the forest?”

“Insects. Moss. Dirt. There’s no breeze. It’s difficult to navigate.” Hux crosses his arms, daring him to argue.

Ren doesn’t, already sure of what he needs to do next. Hux presumes Ren’s off collecting more fruit. Ten minutes later, Ren returns toting a bundle of long branches. He streaks divots in the sand around a tree that sits along the tree line. Moments into his progress it’s clear he’s crafting some sort of shack.

Hux marches over, cringing at the violent kicks emanating from his abdomen. As if the little life form is trying to warn Hux to stand down to protect its creator. Hux is the one that’s carrying this thing around, bracing himself through its agitations. It should be on _his_ side.

“What are you doing?” It’s obvious from the selection of vines and broad leaves.

Ren wipes the sweat from his face, forearms bulging with effort. “What does it look like? You’ll soon pass out from heat exhaustion because of your stubbornness.”

“I’ll be fine. I don’t need you to assemble a little hut for me.”

Ren continues his work.

Hux crosses his arms, belly aching as the baby somersaults. “Made any progress with getting us the hell out of here?”

Ren continues his binding if the branches to the tree. “Not much, but I'm gonna give it another go after dinner,” he says, as if discussing a business venture.

 _“Give it another go?”_ he parrots. “You're here building structures while I grow increasingly mad because of this thing inside me threatens to tear me in two. Was that your plan all this time? Trapping me on a deserted planet and engineering a monster to consume me from the inside? Takes care of a lot for you, doesn't it? You've got your spawn, leaving me a rotting husk!”

“I am going to get us both out of here. In one piece. I swear to it.” Ren vibrates with the determination in his words.

Hux rubs a hand over his increasingly large abdomen, as if the gesture could possibly calm the Ren-ling, brought into this universe by Ren’s hand. Hux was dragged kicking and screaming into this entire mess. Literally.

Not for the first time, Hux wishes this all to have occurred differently. Under the upbringing of a true strategist, like himself, this child will move planets. Unfortunately Ren is part of the package, as he is with most things in Hux’s life. Chaos surrounds him, and this will make their child bleed.

“Let me,” Hux mutters, not unkindly. “I can finish this.”

Ren looks up from his twine wrapping, eyes glinting in mischief at Hux’s red cheeks. “Feel free to help.”

“I'm not an invalid. I don't need you coddling me.”

Flipping his hair from his eyes, Ren smirks. “I know you don't.”

Hux really doesn't like when Ren attempts to be charming. Hux is already unable to control his own primal opinion on those gilded forearms, and that little tuft of hair on his chin. It's the heat and his hormone imbalance, he's certain. Nothing to do with Ren himself and all his disorder.

Ren full-on smiles, surely at Hux’s projection, and Hux berates himself for not guarding his thoughts. Thankfully, Ren spares him by not making any snide remarks. Small blessings.

“It's soothing,” Ren begins. “Making things. No puzzles. Just steps one after the next until you’re done. And you've got, I don't know— a basket, or a lean-to. Or a lightsaber. Whatever it is, it only exists because of you.”

“You make baskets?” Hux raises his brow, burnt skin of his forehead creasing painfully.

“Sometimes.”

 Another mystery for another day. Hux responds by picking up some twine and attempting to tie on some shade for the roofing. Hux is grateful that Ren shuts up for good. His company is significantly more enjoyable when he isn’t speaking to him. Or speaking at all. Or looking in his general direction.

After a while of silent assembly, Hux yelps, knees buckling. Ren’s there before Hux can hit the ground. There are many reasons why Hux should squirm out of Ren’s arms, he just can't think of any right now. His head pulses painfully from the toll of the elements.

Hux claws at Ren’s forearms, nails streaking his skin. “It hurts, _gods_ , it hurts.”

“I know. I'm sorry.” Supporting him by his shoulders, Ren attempts to assuage the wavering man before him.

Hux grimaces. “You're really not.”

“I am. I admit fault in getting us trapped here. I should have been stronger—”

“ _Stop_ making everything about your self-loathing.” Hux whimpers again when the baby kicks at bone. Delirious with shock, Hux scrabbles at Ren’s chest. “Help me up. To the beach. He likes the waves.”

Ren doesn't dare question. As a unit they make it to the shore, and as soon as their toes get wet Hux pushes Ren off of him hard enough they both nearly tip over. He wades far into the shallows that threaten to drop off.

Just like he said it would, the child ceases its thrashing. This is how Hux knows he'd be the prime caretaker of this child. Hux may not have _made_ it or given it life but he’s giving it what it needs now—bearing it in every sense of the word.

Ren hasn’t got the first clue on what his child needs. Whatever kind exploits Ren’s done for him was to delude and manipulate, as he’s always done. And he's shouting at him to stop right now! Hux ignores him, and continues his wading. It sooths him when the child isn’t fighting to escape from his flesh. They can just float here, in the sea where he can maintain a balanced guide. He doesn't need Ren or his little shacks or gourds to survive. They’ll prosper without him.

The water isn't as salty as he recalls. He ducks under for another taste to confirm his suspicions.

He's awarded with very little time on his own when his diving is disrupted by a black mass. Hands tug him up by his shoulders.

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Get your hands off me!” Hux elbows his attacker in the stomach, but Ren doesn’t relent.

Ren’s brow tenses, trying to reach the surfaces of Hux’s thoughts through his pale green eyes. Pushing inside would likely upset him further so he remains outside, looking over the veil of confusion, disdain, and exhaustion from the heat.

There's no use in arguing but he refuses to be complicit in Hux’s dazed parade. “Let's get back to the beach,” he advises, tugging Hux’s hips gently in the safe direction.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Hux mumbles dispassionately, and Ren honestly would like to comply but Hux would probably get even angrier if Ren left him to fall in the sand. He sets Hux down in the near complete shelter, docile after his episode.

He's close to passing out but remains awake to study Ren from the sand. There’s a strange moment between consciousnesses when Hux reads hardened sincerity in those fretting hazel eyes.

An undetermined time later, Hux blinks up at the canopy shading him from the sun’s damaging radiation. He crawls out of the structure, knees irritated in the gritty sand. Ren is nowhere to be found.

Hux squints blearily through the forest in hopes to see his massive shoulders. Only greenwood trees, leafy shrubs and saplings, flowers translucent in the daylight.

He turns to the sea, scanning the flatness. No Ren.

The sky above pelts the beginnings of a shower onto his neck. The downpour comes from nowhere and Hux jogs back into the shelter. It's then he spots Ren, standing down the beach without his shirt on. Hux scowls when Ren approaches.

“Where have you been?” Hux sneers.

“Nice day for a swim,” Ren shouts over the roar of water splattering against the broad leaves of the shelter.

“I didn't see you out there.”

Grinning, Ren kneels in the sand in front of Hux. He lets Hux have the dryness of the shack. “I dive deep.”

“That's fantastic.”

“How are you feeling?” Ren changes the subject, making no move to put his shirt back on. Hux keeps his gaze carefully away from the water droplets collecting on his muscled chest. He supposes Ren’s looking for more creative ways to violate him, opting for the bombarding Hux’s eyes with his half-naked body.

Hux rubs at his head. “Any chance of getting some water?”

“If you ask nicely.”

That earns Ren another glare. “I'd rather dehydrate.”

“Looks like the gourd is collecting more rain water. Mind if I get dry?” he points to the cramped space aside Hux.

The gripe Hux wants to make about the small living space dies on his tongue when he realizes that Ren took it upon himself to make this for him. Without it he'd be passed out against a tree.

Reluctantly, Hux slides sideways oh his bottom. The rain shows no sign of ceasing and Ren plops down next to him.

“Where's your shirt?” Hux asks, with salt.

“Left it at my meditation spot.”

Great, now he'll be shirtless for the entirety of the rainstorm and will probably have to wait until it dries before putting it back on. At least Ren doesn't smell, surprisingly. “And how's that working out for us? The meditation?”

“Better than I'd hoped. I sense I can reach past this system.”

“Past a system and across the galaxy are two entirely different feats.”

It's Ren’s turn to glare. “I may not be strong enough for that yet, but I'm making progress.”

Hux isn't sure it's an accident when Ren leans into his side. He's probably freezing his ass off, trying to steal Hux’s warmth. “Why did you take your shirt off, again?”

“It was hot! And I wanted to swim. Not everybody has skin as sensitive as a baby's.”

“Well, you should have made this shelter bigger so we could both use it.” At Ren’s insults, Hux is no longer grateful for his labor.

Ren scoffs. “Maybe I'll consider adding a garage after this rain passes. Perhaps a back porch swing.”

Hux isn't above rolling his eyes. “You're not as charming as you think you are, _Kylo_ _Ren.”_

That catches Ren’s undivided attention. He leans in, robbing Hux of his personal space. Staring at the array of freckles and sunburn on Hux’s cheeks.

“Stop that.” Hux forces his head forward, away from Ren’s creepiness.

It's striking how well Ren fits in with the elements of this wild place. The sea is his recreational terrain, the jungle his training ground, the sun his energy source. As for Hux, he finds this place most disagreeable. The sea, jungle, and sun are all fighting against him, and he's losing. Embarrassingly so. Especially against the most abhorrent force—the shirtless nightmare who's breathing all his oxygen and fathering his mutant child.

“Why? You gonna pass out on me again?” Ren’s tone is playful but Hux, as always, is not amused.

For once, the planet behaves in Hux’s favor. The ground quakes violently and so abruptly that a branch from Ren’s shelter shakes loose and clobbers Ren square on his head.

Hux smirks. “You earned that.”

Ren fixes the branch back into place, attempting not to let any water trickle in, failing miserably, and getting a fresh splash of rain down his back. Hux snickers like a rotten child at Ren’s undignified squawk.

The noise startles Ren more than the earthquake had. Hux laughing at his expense would not normally make Ren smile but this is a very abnormal time of his life. Having somebody to look after day in and day out under the threat of death, or worse, failure, really puts things into perspective. Watching Hux’s skin crawl as he increasingly grows more reliant on him is amusing, for sure, but there’s something enchanting in gaining Hux’s affection. Well, not affection. Tolerance is more appropriate word choice. He’s never had much in the way of friendly approval, unless he counts his master who can be most accommodating when he succeeds on his missions.

But as soon as Hux realizes what they're doing he shuts down, Ren following in suit. Ren’s still keeps his grin, though.

The sky splits with thunder. Hux sighs, hoping Ren will eventually stop staring at him.

 

 

\--

 

 

It’s not until day fourteen that Hux volunteers to hunt. His face burns hotter than the system’s sun when Ren cackles at him. “What’s so funny?”

“You wouldn’t last ten minutes out here on your own. Just last night you cut your foot on a rock and debating peeing on it to fight off infection.”

Hux fumes. Ren knows full well how much he loathes when he reads his thoughts! “I may not be able to dive down into ravines but I can damn sure get my own food!”

“You need supervision.” Ren is _giggling,_ that bastard.

“Go on and supervise me for your entertainment. I couldn’t care any less.”

“How about we start easy. You can hunt with me?” Ren’s excited to see how this plays out. Not a lot of interesting things happen when you’re stranded on a deserted planet with your mortal enemy, massively failing at telecommunicating through the stretches of emptiness in hopes your master will take pity on you and send rescue.

Hux considers for a moment. “I’m willing to try.” Hux looks so ridiculous with his militaristic gait, completely thrown off by the abnormality of his belly and the disheveled, shining red hair and his assortment of freckles.

They find a patch of vines where the fowl often dig for grubs in the moist soil below. Ren’s picked up several sharp, weighty rocks on the way to the hunting grounds. Hux can’t imagine what Ren uses them for.

“We have to get low,” Ren whispers. Hux is grateful he spoke the words aloud and didn’t take advantage of the openness of Hux’s mind like he usually does. Ren kneels on his shins, sinking close to a tree. Hux follows in suit.

Ren waits patiently for one of the fowl to poke its head up. With a flick of his wrist Ren sends the creature to the closest hard surface—a tree trunk. Ren pins it there with his mind and sends one of his sharp stones directly towards it to cleave its head clear off.

“ _That’s_ what you call hunting?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Ren retrieves the bird and holds it upside down, waving it in front of Hux’s face like a prize.

“Why didn’t you just break its neck against the tree?”

“Then you’d have to eat around broken hollow bones. The blood can drip out while I walk back to camp.”

“You’re insufferable.” Ren’s technique is clever but his smugness makes Hux’s eyes roll. “I admit defeat but what you’re doing really isn’t hunting at all,” Hux says pettily and he makes for a quick retreat to the beach. Ren stops him with a hand on his wrist.

“Don’t move. I’ll get it off,” Ren says to the side of his head.

Hux stiffens, registering the spindly legs of an insect burrowing in his hair. Hux loses all reason. Screeching madly, he shakes his head like a wet animal and swats at the bug—but the stubborn pest won’t budge!

“Hold still!” Ren barks. Hux forces himself to comply, letting Ren comb through his hair until the insect is swiped away to the safety of the forest floor. Ren uses this opportunity to check for more insects. He only saw the one but now he has an excuse to run his fingers through Hux’s hair.

“Oh, let’s get out of this damned jungle.” Hux hides his face from Ren, no doubt redder than the burning sunset.

On day seventeen, Ren hollows out another two gourds when the first one begins to decay beyond use. Hux drinks from his gourd enthusiastically now that he doesn’t have to share. The hair on Ren’s jaw is dense, itchy and unkempt. Having never allowed a full beard at the academy, and unable to grow more than a suggestion of stubble after his procedures on this wretched planet, Hux can only imagine how aggravating Ren’s beard must be.

Ren’s fiddling with his long since broken lightsaber. If he manages to fix it without proper tools, Hux will be impressed.

Tossing the saber angrily into the sand, he then storms off to his meditation site. Hux rolls his eyes. All this monotony maddens him and he struggles to find ways to pass the time. He opts to wade back into the water, feeling Ren’s mind on him from his distance.

Squinting, Hux bends over to study a small school of tiny black fish weaving past him. A small cluster of stones littered with several clumps of bivalves catch his eye. He yanks one off, studying its ivory shelling. He gathers the whole colony in the cradle of his shawl to take back to the beach.

He cooks them on the stone until they open, revealing slimy orange flesh inside.

“Already tired of breadfruit?” interrupts Ren.

“It helps to have some variety.”

Hux watches Ren reach to grab one, singeing his fingertips on the shell in the process.

“Careful. They’re hot,” Hux smirks, expecting to get a rise out of him. Ren only pouts, and plants himself in the sand close to Hux facing the water.

“This place anything like your home planet?” Ren inquires out of nowhere.

Hux shakes his head, appreciating the small talk. The normalcy. Ren and he were capable of being normal, once upon a time. “The planet where I grew up had more rain. And the ocean is way flatter here. And saltier.” His memory serves him well. All he’s got of his planet are memories, having left for the Academy at the tender age of eleven. “What about you?”

Ren shrugs. “Kind of moved around a lot. Can’t really say.” Careful to hide the details of his upbringing.

“Well, do you have a favorite?”

“Not really.”

“Not even a favorite place? Doesn’t have to be a whole planet.” Hux digs for a straight answer.

“I like mountains. And caves. I kind of want to live in one.”

He nods, and adjusts his bottom in the sand for comfort. Caves make sense. Natural shelter, seclusion. Ren would be the type.

The bivalves have cooled enough that Hux can pry them open with his bare fingers. He hands his opened one to Ren, and they lick away the meat inside. Ren raises his brows. The meat is pretty tasty, and Hux gives him an agreeing nod.

“Have you been thinking about names?” Hux says dryly.

Ren puckers his brow, treating his joke like a legitimate question. “I dunno. Maybe we could name him after one of us.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“We could name him after your father.” Now Hux knows he’s definitely not serious.

“We could name him after yours,” Hux counters, and his eyes widen with the thrill of having made Ren laugh that freely.

It’s a charade, Hux and Ren chuckling on a beach on some nameless planet in the Outer Rim. The wind picks up, threatening to put out their coveted campfire. Ren squints curiously at Hux from across it. He idly wonders if this constitutes as a vacation. Then staves off the thought. They wouldn’t want to spend this much time together for fun, even if it meant relaxation.

“This is my fault,” Ren says to the waves.

Hux agrees. “The sky is blue, if we’re still pointing out the obvious.”

Ren stares at Hux with his sad dog eyes, and Hux decides he’ll allow it. “Do I repel you?”

Sometimes Hux swears Ren’s deliberately trying to sabotage himself. “Especially,” Hux slurps up another bivalve. “But you can be useful. On occasion.”

Ren looks as if he wants to confess something else, something personal, but can’t get the words out. He’s fighting against them like one would choke down vomit.

Hux supposes now’s the time to spare him, though he doesn’t deserve it. “I don’t care to hear your apologies.”

“I wasn’t planning on apologizing,” Ren grates out, frustrated.

“Please. It’s just sad how pathetically you try and conceal your feelings.” Emotional abuse is their primary method of communication, and Hux especially is all too passionate about spewing harassment.

This causes Ren to grin with those too-big teeth showing. “Yeah, right. I see the way you look at me,” he murmurs suggestively.

Hux can only blink several beats of his lashes. “That’s not even remotely what I was talking about, and I think this discussion is over.”

Leaning back in the sand like a preening cat, Ren pretends he isn’t posing his legs just so, while ensuring his neck cranes at a flattering angle. Hux can’t imagine what nonsense is going on in that head.

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

 

“Do you know how to swim?” Ren asks him one day after a brief rainstorm. It's either the twenty fifth or sixth day in exile. Hux is losing track.

Ren suppresses the urge to confirm that it's the twenty sixth. From experience he knows Hux abhors when he reads any unmonitored thoughts, especially when he voices that he’d done so.

“Of course I can. I'm just carrying an extra person so it's a little difficult to be active.” In retort, the baby squirms furiously inside of him. Hux squeezes his fists against the pain. His hell knows no end.

Yesterday he'd vomited all the citrus Ren had harvested for him because the agony was too much to bear. And Ren was there to help him wash the sick from his hair like some kind of dutiful handmaiden.

Ren scratches his beard. “You said the baby likes the ocean. Maybe I could take you out there.” Because he can't do it himself without drowning.

The little Ren-ling must have sprouted claws, scraping around his guts and bringing tears to his eyes. “You want to help? Shut the fuck up and leave me in peace.”

Glowering, Ren won't admit defeat. “How about you get off your ass and come with me, you stubborn bastard.”

Hux glares hotly. “Just so you know, when the opportunity to kill you presents itself, I won't hesitate,” he sneers.

“Aw, you mean it?”

They regard each other in silent fury. Surrendering, Hux extends his hand for Ren to take. “You're many things but at least boring isn't one of them.”

“Is that a compliment I hear from none other than the great Colonel Hux?” he grins delightedly, leaving Hux’s hand hovering in midair.

“You truly destroy everything in your pathetic effort make things well.” Instead of waiting for Ren to help him up he scrabbles at the sand, his knees popping in protest. Ren hoists him up by the shoulders anyway. Hux gives himself space. “Keep your shirt on.”

“As you wish.”

“And hands above my waist unless most necessary,” Hux orders as they make their way to the shore.

“What do you think I'm gonna do?” he asks. Hux isn't looking at his face but he can hear the smile.

“Knowing you, something perverted—ah!” Hux exclaims when the infant flogs him from within.

“Alright, take it easy. That's it,” Ren cheers on, though Hux isn't really doing much besides wading slowly to the deeper part of the sea. Hux needs a boost in morale. “You're a natural,” he says without his usual sarcasm.

“You really don't know when to shut up,” Hux groans. But Ren was right. The water swirling around him, tugging at his baggy sweater is already having immensely calming effects on the Ren-ling.  

“How's he doing?” Where Ren has the advantage of keen Force sensitivity Hux has the benefit of being organically linked with the baby. The difference in connection will make for an interesting relationship with the child when he's born.

Hux pauses before answering honestly. “Better.”

“Told you.” Ren can't help himself. It's just too easy.

“You know, there was a time when I thought you were misunderstood. I actually would wonder if you deserved the ill reputation you've achieved. But then you kidnapped and tortured me and got us stranded on a deserted planet and all empathy I'd ever gathered for you completely disintegrated.”

Ren steadies Hux by his arms when a pull in the tide threatens to tip them over. “What, you said above the waist. Unless you'd rather go under and be fish food.”

Before he can retort another pull in the tide makes Hux lose his balance altogether, flopping forward onto Ren who stands stiffly as the water swirls around him, legs anchoring in the sand like tree trunks.

It doesn’t take long for Hux to decide to go with the flow, literally. He lifts his legs to use his body’s natural buoyancy. The movement of water is incredibly soothing that he doesn’t mind clinging to Ren so that he won't be swept out to sea.

Taking the initiative, Ren swivels around so that his back is facing Hux. He guides Hux’s arms to loop around his neck and hook together so as to not slip away, turning himself into a human life raft.

Ren bites his lip, titillated at the fact that Hux doesn't make any objections whatsoever. Strange, how Hux is content to ride him like a friendly sea mammal. Kicking off the sand beneath his feet, they bob together, floating with the waves. While Ren treads water, Hux tucks his face to Ren's neck to hide from the sun. The sinusoidal rhythm of the waves lulls him to a peaceful distraction.

Hux’s protruding gut bumps against Ren's back. He registers the roundness of it, and how the baby isn’t moving beneath Hux’s skin. Not like how it normally does, violently and bizarrely. One time Hux made him watch as the baby poked its foot or something, distending his stomach like some alien horror story. He watched Hux’s face contort in discomfort, the redness of his cheeks amplified by his heightened blood pressure. Ren’s pleased the baby is giving Hux some reprieve, and considers saying aloud just how much. But now isn’t the time to talk about the baby. Hux is supposed to be relaxing.

They bob together until the blue sky runs a fierce orange before Ren speaks again. Gripping his neck and shoulders tighter against a particularly powerful wave, Hux restricts Ren’s airflow in an effort to remain on the safety of his human life raft. Or the opportunity had presented itself and this is Hux trying to kill him. “Easy there,” Ren’s throat croaks from disuse and Hux’s pressure.

Hux replies with a loll of his head. Ren cranes his head to see what distasteful expression contorts Hux’s otherwise soft features.

But those features are slack with sleep. His lip hangs open so that Ren can count a few of his bottom teeth.

Smirking to himself, Ren places a hand against the junction of Hux’s crossed arms to prevent him from slipping. Sometimes his plans don’t end in miserable failure.

Ren’s fingers prune past the point of acceptableness, marking the end of their ocean excursion. He shakes his shoulders gently. “Hey,” he whispers.

Hux’s eyes open after a beat. They blink up at Ren, irises intensified by the cool sea around them. “I fell asleep,” Hux admits.

“You did.”

Hopefully Ren doesn’t see his reflexive swallow, an involuntary display of whatever his body chooses to emote next. “We should do that again.”

Ren’s nostrils twitch like a rabbit’s. “We can.” Long arms slide away from his neck, hands settling on his broad shoulders.

“You must be exhausted,” Hux laments.

“It was worth it,” Ren’s voice vibrates lowly. The setting sun halos his dark, wild hair, the looser tangles flapping about in the sea breeze.

Pointedly, Hux looks away, eying a small school of fish dancing in the current below. “Well. I appreciate it.” The secret’s out before he can extinguish it.

Hux braces for the impact of his admission but the blowback never comes. “Let’s get back to camp.”

Back by the fire, Hux shivers in his sodden clothing. They still have several hours of daylight—the sun takes forever to set here. Ren dumps fresh logs onto the fire, adding to the blaze.

Satisfied Hux won’t freeze in his absence, he stalks over to the tree line to gallivant for more fruit. He feels Hux’s eyes burn into his back, but leaves without another word.

They’re remarkably good at not killing each other these days. Hopefully they can keep it up, but Ren has the suspicion Hux will have a more difficult time due to his bottled up emotions. Maybe he can show him some stress relief methods. Assuming he has any effective ones of his own.

Perhaps working with his hands is a practice that relieves stress for him, but often his projects fail and whatever he’s trying to mend breaks into pieces, like his lightsaber. It’s probably all the sand particles that are jamming its crevices, the water damage no longer an issue. It hasn’t been wet in almost a month! He’d thought he knew the ins and outs of such an ancient technology—the tool of the Sith and the deficient Jedi. When he resumes his training, the Supreme Leader might have to take a look at it seeing that he has a far greater knowledge of both the Dark and Light than Ren’s self.

Ren considers just how the Supreme Leader vehemently disapproves failure. He might be better off keeping the lightsaber’s malfunction to himself, at least for a little while.

Blinking up at the steadily darkening sky, Ren quickens his pace to find dinner. Most of the nearby trees have been picked clean so he’s forced to trek farther into the humming jungle. There’s a patch of moss that looks promising. In moist sections of earth there are often root vegetables that are safe for consumption. Good in fiber, too. He digs, digs, and digs, blunt fingernails nicking on the stone-riddled soil. He finds what he’s searching for, a tapered root vegetable with a body several shades greener than the leaves sprouting from its head.

Scavenging doesn’t suit him but Kylo Ren is a survivor, willing to do anything to adapt, gain the advantage. It’ll take time for him to learn to thrive on failure like he does on success, turning each loss, each blow around to a learning experience.

Hux will probably need protein in order to be satisfied throughout the night, so Ren calls out with his senses. The closest life forms are insects, and he doesn’t have to exercise his mind-reading to know Hux would rather starve than eat any of those.

Ren smirks to himself at the memory of Hux’s last run-in with an insect when he was squatting to relieve himself. It was just by chance Ren was grazing his mind with Hux’s when he felt his shock and pain from where he’d wandered off to. Imagine Hux getting stung on his thigh because he tried to shit on an underground hive! Luckily the sting only swelled for a few hours.

A small rodent scurries ahead, but having nothing to skin it with, Ren opts to track another fowl. It’s a species he’s never killed before but he assumes it’s healthy from its deep red blood congealing on its blue feathers. Red blood means human compatible. He’s not sure where he learned that. Ren shrugs. He probably made it up.

By the time he gets back to camp, Hux hasn’t moved a single inch.

“These should be okay.” Ren passes him half of his collection of vegetables. Hesitating momentarily, Hux takes his share, not looking Ren in his eyes.

“They’re…interesting,” Hux tells him after a few crunches.

Ren gets to work on the bird while Hux tops off his roots. He’d gotten really good at cooking with nothing more than log fire, prodding sticks, and flat stones, so the meal is ready to eat before the daylight vanishes.

It’s not that they’ve run out of things to talk about, but Hux is not in the mood to play any battle of wits tonight. They pick apart the bird in silence. Hux grimaces at the bird’s tartness but isn’t up to arguing. He’s just fortunate Ren had caught something tonight. He’s needed more and more sustenance as the days pass.

The baby waits until Hux has had his meal before resuming its kicking and clawing. Ren can’t sit idly while Hux braces against the agony, so he crawls over, urging Hux onto his back.

“Maybe I can help put it to sleep.” Because of his and Hux’s adversity, he hadn’t practiced his original meditation technique on the baby. He’s willing to bet it’ll have more of an effect now that it’s grown.

It must truly be unbearable because Hux doesn’t put up much of a fight, save for his grimace and glare, but that’s likely just a symptom of the excruciating agitation from their baby.

Ren tugs Hux’s sweater over his stomach, baring the enormous distention. His eyes widen to saucers when he sees the distinct impression of a tiny splay of fingertips poking from within.

“Seriously? _That_ disgusts you?” Hux is no longer able to contain his rage, though his comment comes out like a plea.

He places his broad, dirt-smudged palms on top of where the little hand waved to him. “It’s not disgusting. It’s fascinating.”

“Well, I’m glad you think—” The Ren-ling jostles a bundle of nerve endings somewhere along his spine, barring whatever clever remark he planned on saying. Yowling into the night sky above like a wounded prey, Hux pounds his fist into the sand next to him to prevent his fist from colliding with his stomach in a fit of blind, feral misery.

Hux is squirming too much for Ren to properly connect with the both of them, so he plasters himself behind Hux, wrapping one muscled arm around his chest and the other atop Hux’s bare stomach. The expletives Hux chokes out are nonsense as he rides through the torment. Straining, Ren holds Hux close, taking all his concentration to send healing Force vibrations to the baby’s emergent receptivity to such stimulation.

In silence, Ren continues restricting Hux’s movements until he stills on his own. Hux gasps, his cheekbone bumping Ren’s nose. Their creation relentlessly bucks against all Ren’s ministrations and Hux brings a hand to yank at Ren’s hair, nearly wrenching some of his scalp loose. Ren’s finally able to connect and pass a barely-there sleep suggestion to the baby, treating its fragile mind with the utmost care.

Together they pant in unison. Hux’s hand remains hooked in Ren’s hair, unaware he’d fixed it there.

“That was awful,” Hux breathes. “It’s never been that bad before,” sounding small and young. Not the characteristics of someone who’s certain of their fate.

“You got through it. Just sleep. Don’t think about anything else.” Ren rubs his hands back and forth against his belly and Hux allows it because it feels good.

After one of the logs in the fire crackles in half, Hux withdraws the hand he’d forced to Ren’s hair. Ren doesn’t stop his massage and for that he’s grateful. Bruising both of his eyes with the heels of his hands, Hux exhales and revels in this small episode of reprieve.

Satisfied Hux won't devolve into another fit, Ren rolls over on his back, the exertion from the day pushing him past the brink into unconsciousness.

Something loud and violent pulls Hux from his dreamless slumber. Blearily he cracks open his eyes against the beating sunshine, cursing himself for sleeping under the cloudless sky. Adding another layer of burn to the sensitive skin of his face.

He hears it again, the sensation of screams permeating his mind. Maybe it's another life form abandoned like he and Ren, cast away to this place and begging for help.

But there's nothing in a sight’s radius to indicate any injured persons. Only the beach ahead, the sky above, the forest behind. Each domain's end meeting the other, composing the sphere of their imprisoning reality.

Hux squints to Ren beside him, curled up on his side like he imagines the Ren-ling rests in utero when it's not tearing him apart.

The screams bellow through his mind even stronger. They must be coming from Ren. His face is contorted into a contemplative scowl, not quite anguish or despair. It's more likely that the bellows are not from Ren but from the enemies he’s chasing after in his dream.

The voices sound awfully young the more Hux concentrates. Figures Ren has fantasies of killing children.

Hux lets Ren experience the dream for a little while longer before tugging on his shoulder.

Inhaling sharply, Ren blinks awake. He scowls at Hux but the emotion is directed at himself.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Hux says, looking down at the flat sea when Ren's quiet satisfies him.

Breaking the peace, Ren abruptly retches into the sand behind him. My, how the tables have turned. Hux grimaces, but is amused unabashedly. “Looks like the heat’s finally getting to you. Poor thing.” Hux pats his back in a mock soothing manner.

Blinded by his own glee, Hux accidentally catches a full view of Ren puking some more. His own weakened stomach falls victim to the suggestion, sending him in a fit of retching as well.

Terrible. Just terrible. Hux’s sick is tacky on his hand so he rubs it away at a fresh patch of sand. “That bird must have been poisonous. Better stick with the usual fowl next time.”

“You think?” Ren groans, spitting the residual sick from his mouth.

“We should get more fresh water,” Hux coughs. They look pathetic scooting sand over their twin piles of vomit to make their campsite less disgusting.

Ren nods wholeheartedly. Hux hadn't tagged along a water trip since that first time when Ren made him cry. Well, he didn't cry but he behaved just as frail and senile as if he had. “You should take it easy. You can barely walk.”

Untrue. “I'm not concerned. You'll be there to catch me, anyway,” Hux sneers at his insolence.

Ren shakes his head. “Whatever.”

This trip for water is significantly more tolerable than the last. Ren would like to think he and Hux have settled to a truce by now.

Looking back at Hux, Ren pauses at his obvious exhaustion. “This is the same place as last time, right?” Hux pants, yearning to lean against a tree.

“Yeah. We can take a break here,” Ren nods to a fallen log, shamelessly reading Hux’s projection.

“It seems to be a lot farther,” mutters Hux.

Ren plops down on the log even though he doesn't need to. “Just sit.”

Swallowing around his dry throat, Hux looks around the trees above for any fruit. There are none visible. It would never be that easy, anyway. Ren would probably go looking for some if he asked but Hux doesn't want to stray from their mission.

He places the gourd on the log between them. “You were having a nightmare,” Hux says matter-of-factly. His filter, already rarely put to use, never wants to activate itself around Ren. Ren’s one of the few people he can say whatever he wants to without having to worry about consequences. Once he climbs to the highest rank, hopefully within the next decade, he won’t have to worry about hiding how he truly feels to anyone, as they would all be his subordinates.

He may not have been the highest ranking officer on the Finalizer but he’d been privy to secret meetings with Supreme Leader Snoke, functioning as the First Order’s connection with Snoke’s wielders of the dark side. In most cases that meant Ren. Funny, how nothing’s changed if not gotten worse. With any hope his future will hold less Force, less Snoke, and less Kylo Ren.

“I don’t have nightmares,” Ren lies. “Only memories.”

“Those can eat away at you just as badly as nightmares can, if not more so,” Hux replies.

Ren shrugs. He eyes a smattering of sand stuck to Hux’s temple and swipes it away with his thumb. Hux lets him. He doesn’t want the sand falling in his eyes on their hike.

The contact from Ren’s callous fingertip against his face was what baby needed to somersault with excitement. Hux grimaces, choking down a whimper.

“He’ll need to come out soon. Really soon,” Ren supplies without prompting.

Hux doesn’t know what to say to that. He’d love nothing more than for it to come out! But there’s no logical, practical way to remove it without professional help. And the closest facility is not only weeks away on foot, but also blown to shit by that jaundiced cloaked man. If they were to somehow make it back to the bunker, Hux’s chances of living through this are still abysmally slim, seeing that Ren’s survival skills probably don’t consist of performing cesareans on adult human males.

“We’re almost there. Just wait here and I’ll be right back. Don’t look at me like that! You should be proud for making it most of the way,” Ren attempts to assuage Hux’s involuntary pout.

“Don’t take too long. I need…” he swallows. “I need to go in the sea like we did yesterday. This is too much,” he whispers, looking anywhere but at Ren.

“Give me three minutes.” Without another word, Ren snatches the gourd and breaks into a sprint in the direction of the water source. This time, it’s not Ren suffering bodily injury or making himself look foolish that brings a small, private smile to Hux’s lips.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

On day thirty, Hux relaxes in the shack while Ren meditates close by. Interesting change in routine, as opposed to his usual distance. He wants to go for a walk but is too afraid he’ll stumble if he’s alone or pass out in the jungle from exhaustion. There’s a long moment where Hux bores holes in Ren’s back, aching for him to take a break so he can slip in his request.

“We should leave soon if we don’t want to be rushed to beat the sunset,” pipes Ren.

Rolling his eyes, Hux stands—a task getting increasingly more difficult as the long days pass. “I’m leading the way,” he says, assertive.

Ren looks like he wants to object, recalling Hux’s regular bouts of faintness.

Hux, dwarfed in the shawl, regards Ren sullenly. “I won’t do anything stupid. I’m sick of tagging along beside you when I’m not lazing around this beach.”

Ren fixates on the flutter of Hux’s thick swoop of lashes sheltering his eyes against the breeze, fascinated by the range of colors found in his pale face upon a closer look. The mosaic of freckles is always fun to ogle, along with his windswept, sun stained hair. There’s a bug bite on his neck, enflamed from scratching. Ren imagines how Hux would have swatted the bug to kill it, futilely so. “Go for it.”

As expected, Hux takes them along the beach. He follows the tree line, each step a precaution against the many stones that riddle the sand.

It’s not even ten minutes and Hux is already panting, and Ren has the decency to take smaller strides so Hux can maintain his semblance of leadership. They reach a beach made entirely up of broken shells that crunch satisfyingly underneath their boots. A seismic quake trembles through the nearby trees, and Hux bends his knees for balance so he won’t have to grab onto Ren like a feeble waif.

“I think Snoke will send someone to retrieve us when he catches wind of what happened at the compound. I’d been transmitting updates with my comm. Of course the one day I hadn’t attached it to my wrist was the day I needed it the most,” Ren berates himself after the shakes subside. “Snoke hasn’t gotten one in over a month.”

Hux peers at him through the corners of his eyes knowing full well what Ren’s insinuating. He’s not capable of mentally reaching Snoke—not from this distance, and not when the both of them are ignorant to his precise location, privy only to a private channel from within the First Order’s network.

“Ren, spare me. Supreme Leader doesn’t present failure as an option. We’ve failed. There’s not going to be a rescue.” The skies open and begin to speckle their clothing with gentle rainfall.

Ren stops walking altogether. “There will be. I’ve seen visions,” he lies.

“Visions?” Hux deadpans. “Am I in these _visions_ as well?”

Ren squints in thought, considering. Hux pushes past him and marches onward. “No, I’m not in your _visions_ at all.”

“Yes, you are!” Ren sputters, backpedaling.

“I’m going to be torn up from the inside and you’ll be forced to slice me open to get him out. Your plans repeatedly fail and you’ve dragged me down with you for good.”

Scraping his boots into the shells, Ren spins Hux around by his shoulders to look him in the eye. “That will not happen. I won’t allow it.”

Hux doesn’t bother fighting to shake him off. “You have no control over anything,” he breathes. “You never did.” The rain lightens up.

His face scrunches into a grimace when the Ren-ling kicks outward. It senses Ren, Hux knows it, and wants Ren closer.

Ren blinks at him in confusion when Hux laughs bitterly. “Maybe things would have worked out if he grew inside of you all this time. He keeps reaching out for you when you’re near. With you he’d be content to stay put.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, Hux regrets them as if he admitted something gravely personal.

He's looking at Hux with those dark eyes. Ren palms over the lower half of Hux’s belly, and Hux swallows, lashes beating with their flustered movement. There he goes emoting uncontrollably, quivering like an exposed nerve under Ren’s lidded gaze.

 “Ren, I want to get back to camp.”

The warmth radiating from his palm is his response.

“Ren…”

“Let's take a detour.”

“To where?” Hux deadpans.

Smirking lecherously, Ren snakes his fingers around his wrist. Hux doesn't know why he lets him.

When Ren leads him through the trees, Hux groans. “I've had enough of this jungle.” Hux’s arms fall to his sides when Ren releases him now that he knows Hux will follow.

“Wait ‘til you see this.” Hux can't see his face but he can hear the grin plastered to it.

It's nearly sunset when they reach the stony basin, canopied by the thicket of greenwoods. Soft tufts of moss cover the ground around a large steaming spring, water fed from an unseen source. Hux’s skin prickles from the enticing sight of it.

Ren tugs off his shirt with one deft move.

“What is this? What are you doing?” Hux keeps his eyes above Ren’s neck.

“I found this while I was looking for more fruit trees. It's safe to take a dip.”

Ren flexes his pectorals, showing off like an exotic bird. Hux is determined not to be fazed.

But when Ren drops his pants, Hux can't keep his gaze from falling, immediately regretting the action. “That's no fair. I look like a misshaped whale,” Hux says, in hopes he can cover his carnal weakness with cynicism.

“That's not true.” Even though it kind of is. “C’mon, he'll love it.” Ren’s trying to be charming again. And it’s working this time.

Well, it'll be nice to have a steamed bath. Even if he has to share it with Ren. A tall, tanned, toned, naked Ren. Hux accepts the challenge and pulls off the shawl and stained sweater. He hasn’t had access to a mirror for several weeks but he imagines the stretchmarks on this stomach will disgust Ren enough to keep him from looking at him.

Ren teeters cautiously towards him on mossy stones, holding out his hand again. Hux could have gone ages without knowing just how Ren’s genitals sway in cadence with his shifts in balance.

He doesn’t say anything when Hux chooses to leave his pantaloons on. They’ll freeze on him overnight but Hux does not to show he knows or cares.

“This is one of your better ideas,” Hux purrs, already feeling his body ease upon immersion. He finds a submerged stone to sit on, content that its level is low enough that his shoulders are almost completely below the surface of the water. Immediately the Ren-ling quiets, as if it isn’t even there. The spring gives off herbal, earthy vapors, and is simmering at a near perfect temperature for relaxation. Hux allows himself to be happy that Ren led them here.

“I’ll agree with you there.” Those are words Ren never would have spoken to his counterpart before recent events. Clumsily, Ren tilts to do a few backstrokes into the expanse of the spring. Another image of his limp dick in action Hux really didn’t need to see, but is seared into his memory nonetheless.

Not for the first time, Hux wonders what it would be like to be close to another person, never having been touched like others his age. Perhaps Ren is like him in that way, having also lived his adult life under the structure of the First Order. Hux believes in the Order’s strict intolerance for personal desires and other devices that breed disorder and divide loyalties. His body, however, is imperfect and cares little of these ideals. It’ll cry out when it’s hurt and ache for physical satisfaction that never comes.

Hux lets his eyes slip shut, imagining the Ren-ling is doing the same in the darkness of the mock womb. If only he could fall asleep here without turning into a gigantic prune.

He can feel Ren nearby waiting to touch him without permission again. Hux peers through his lashes at Ren, whose arms are below the surface, not close enough to slip in more sensual belly rubs.

“He likes it?” Ren asks, eying the water above Hux’s belly.

“Mhm,” Hux murmurs. Ren’s hair is wet up to his jaw and dry towards the crown of his head. The humorous girth of his ears are amplified by the soppiness of his hair. Like the wings on Ren’s command shuttle, only his ears don’t bend and spread dramatically, though they may as well have. Hux’s lip quirks at the mental picture.

Ren’s smirks too, though he wouldn’t be if Hux had projected the image to him. “Hungry yet?”

“Well, now that you mention it.”

“I found some root vegetables.” More food Ren produces from thin air. He grabs two tapered, dark green rods with fuzzy veins from atop the rocks above. Wet and freshly scrubbed of dirt.

It’s purposeful, when Ren brushes his fingers along his as Hux takes a root. Hux’s heart—his most useless organ—constricts within his ribcage. Ren’s doing that thing again where he manipulates Hux with his touch. He doesn’t know how he hadn’t seen this moment coming, when Ren invades his space with his oversized face. Looming too close for Hux to ignore his own nonsensical impulses.

Hux’s hand comes up instinctively, gripping Ren’s jaw with bruising strength. The better part of Hux wants to yank Ren down by his hair and have the hump of his unborn child beneath the water be the last thing he ever sees, but the significantly more adverse part of Hux wins out. He grimaces and wrenches Ren’s face into his, hand slipping to the base of his skull when he brands Ren with his kiss.

The air between them is sucked away from the force of Ren’s intake of breath. Hux nips at Ren with his teeth, sampling the smooth flesh. Inexpert, frenzied, clumsy. Satisfied, he releases Ren. He sinks lower into the pool, face hotter than his submerged skin. Eying the little pads of water lens that float about the surface.

Ren treads beside him so that when Hux looks to his side, he can only see him from his regal profile. His eyes are downcast, as if contemplating a riddle.

He doesn't know why Ren’s got that idiotic, parsec-long stare. Ren's the one that started the touching, the perversity. Hux is sick of falling victim to Ren—the invader of bodies and personal space—so he took things into his own hands. It’s equally likely that the sun had finally bleached away all rationality, and this kiss was a mistake of his poisoned mind that he can’t take back.

Hux catches the floating root vegetable closest to him, which happens to be in the water above Ren’s lap. At the sudden movement, Ren jolts, and the swirling water clears at the perfect moment for Hux to see exactly the riddle Ren was trying to solve: the unmistakable swell of his erection.

Hux lets the image seer into his brain, alongside the other images of Ren’s cock. Blinking rapidly, Hux bristles. “I'd have thought you'd be the last person to not know how to get rid of that yourself.”

With that remark, Ren stands and assaults Hux with a miniature tidal wave. The air that rapidly cools his wet skin solves his body’s sexual dilemma. “I’ll be up here.” He’s aiming for gruffness but Hux senses his underlying embarrassment.

Hux turns to look up behind, getting an eyeful of the pants that cling to Ren’s toned ass. Indulging in the silence, Hux revels in the baby’s complete and utter stillness, sitting alone for a little while longer. He presses his lips together, testing the faint film of saliva that isn’t his own. His lips tingle from doing that too hard, but it’s the only sensation that can drive away the feeling of Ren.

They make it back to their camp and Ren starts another fire with the piteous sparks from his saber. Hux’s pants are ice cold, and he waits for Ren to head off into the jungle to relieve himself before shedding the offending garment and tying his dry shawl around his waist like a skirt.

He never should have gone in that spring. But the Ren-ling hasn’t budged since they lay submerged in the heated freshwater. Hopefully it’ll stay put for the rest of the evening.

Ren returns and tucks himself into Hux’s little shelter without as much as a word. He waits for Hux to join him, something they hadn't done in almost a week. Surely the man would freeze to death without his heat tonight.

Hux crawls in and lies away from Ren, accepting his fate. The pallor of his petite lower back peeks from underneath his sweater. When Ren closes his eyes, his memory assaults him with a replay of that kiss.

Surely Hux didn’t kiss him because of anything related to fondness or affection. That would be awkward, given how often he established his unabashed hatred for him. Ren doesn’t even like Hux that much. He doesn’t. Testing Hux’s personal boundaries has been his only source of entertainment. And now that Hux has acted on his guileless frustrations, Ren’s intrigued. Maybe Hux has more impulses he’d like to act on.

He lets his hand move to the sliver of skin, testing to see if it's as smooth as it looks. It is, and he'd like to see if more of Hux is just as soft.

Ren retracts his hand to prevent it from getting flattened when Hux rolls over, pupils round and gaping having adjusted to the darkness. “You should wait for permission to touch people,” Hux accuses, accented voice stark in the stillness of the tent.

Ren swallows. “Would you give it if I asked?”

Hux leans on a knobbed shoulder, frowning. The dim flutter from the fire outside illuminates the space between them when Hux steals another inexperienced kiss. His tongue escapes, tantalizing the seam of Ren’s blistered lips.

The forbidden act of kissing—kissing _Ren_ —burns satisfaction thickly through his bloodstream. Distantly the waves lap onto the sand, erasing the steps on the beach they'd taken that day. Every particle of white sand and every crumb of shell flattened into order once more. This is the only place in the galaxy where kissing his torturer in a leafy tent makes perfect sense.

Giving in to his most tormenting desires is not something Hux will ever forgive himself for. His pride, his honor, swept aside. Not because of Ren’s half-assed seduction techniques or his manipulation practices. Those, Hux could fight against for eons. Hux did this to himself. He broke down his own barriers in order for this fix, to scratch at the itch. To use Ren as he had done to him.

Hux’s fingers card through the strands of Ren’s hair, and he shivers at the gravelly rumble of Ren’s noise of contentment.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Ren scowls at his own admission.

“That’s hardly news,” Hux smirks then smiles fully, and Ren declares the expression to be rarer than a red kyber crystal. Their proximity dilutes what animosity he’s prone to feeling whenever Hux insults him.

The desire to control Hux, body and mind, has long since vanished. And the fear he’s hardly able acknowledge causes hesitation in taking what he wants—fear that Hux will reject him, but more so the fear that Hux won’t. Ultimately, attachment is what defeated Vader. He refuses to be entrapped so easily.

However, the intrigue within Hux’s actions is far too potent to dismiss. Ren paws Hux’s shoulder and he follows the pressure willingly, lips parted and glittering eyes beating his in the dark.

Ren’s chest constricts, unable to look at Hux’s open expression any longer. With aid from the Force, he anchors Hux onto his hands and knees, careful not to jostle his belly. Hux gasps at the change, biting his tongue when Ren’s lips tantalize the skin of his neck from behind.

It's not the temperature drop that wracks his body with shivers as Ren’s hand snakes up the makeshift bottom he tied with the shawl. A hot palm cups the back of his leg and higher, to the smooth, warm skin of the inside of his thigh. Dry fingertips brush Hux’s cock, and Hux’s knees involuntarily draw in on each other, dragging in the sand. The one and only time he welcomes Ren’s touch, his body objects.

Ren withdraws his hand, his dark eyes clouding over. He sits up, staring out to the nighttime sea for answers.

“No, no. Wait,” Hux breathes, desperate.

But Ren’s averting his eyes, scratching at some sand bug in his hair.

Exhaling through his nose, Hux lies on his back. Splitting his legs apart slightly, his heaving abdomen blocks the view of his own toes. “Like this.”

Ren’s face is elongated and widened, his already oblong set of features exaggerated from the low angle. When he doesn’t move, Hux exhales heavily again, now self-conscious of his abnormal anatomical proportions. Ren had him on his hands and knees like an animal. He wouldn’t have to see the unnatural breadth of his stomach, larger than ever before.

Ren senses the projection. With an infinitesimal twitch of his eyes, Ren drags his tongue against the skin of his palm, wetting away the grime. “Tell me to stop if this isn’t what you want,” he says to Hux’s bewilderment.

With care, Ren takes Hux’s limp, furled cock in his hand, testing its mass. Ren relishes how his fist dwarfs him, even when Hux’s naked legs part as his cock begins to fill.

Hux anchors a palm on Ren’s bicep, frustrated he cannot see Ren’s hand between his legs because of the Ren-ling. Ren’s drawing out one of the most amazingly confusing sensations he’s ever felt. Whatever he’s doing down there is working.

Ren commits to memory the shifts in Hux’s throat and confused pinch of his brow. His motions become more proficient as his rhythm evens out. The space under Hux’s ear looks empty so Ren fills it with his nose, absorbing the salt-sweet scent of unwashed skin. Ren’s tongue experiments around the area, lapping away spare grains of sand and testing the resistance of the hollow where jaw meets skull.

“ _Oh,”_ Hux gasps, coming onto Ren’s fist hardly a minute later. He scowls out of his daze when Ren brings his sticky hand to his mouth. “That’s filthy.”

Smirking, Ren brushes the tip of his tongue to his index finger. “You should try it.”

Hux grimaces. He looks down at his knees, reddened from his squat in the sand earlier. His cock feels tingly and raw.

“I’ll be right back.” Hux doesn’t object. Ren hadn’t expressed he wanted Hux to reciprocate.

Ren pops back into his line of vision, dabbing away the sea’s moisture from his hand onto his pants. “You’re tired. Don’t worry about me.”

The annoyance returns. “Stop assuming what I need, Ren. And stop invading my mind. You know how much I hate when you do that.” Hux tugs the shawl over his lap and Ren’s in his face again. Extending his tongue deep past Hux’s lips, indulging.

“Sorry,” he murmurs after releasing him. Hux shivers from the warmth within his chest, knowing full well that Ren will never cease his games.

Swallowing thickly, Hux brings his hand to Ren’s crotch. Fingers fumble with the clasp of his pants until they give, and Hux can investigate his prize. Ren’s already hard, cock angling nearly adjacent to the flat plane of his abdomen. It’s bigger that he’s ever seen it before, ominously so, but Hux manages to hold it comfortably in one hand.

When Hux starts to mimic Ren’s actions, he’s stopped. “Wait. You need—something to ease the way.”

Squinting, Hux desperately tries to comprehend. His effort is immediately halted when Ren gently brings Hux’s hand to his mouth, lapping his palm and in the seams between his fingers with saliva. Hux exhales through his nostrils, finally able to understand what heaviness the word ‘erotic’ carries.

Ren groans, low and resonant in the tiny space of the tent. He lurches for another long, wet kiss, eager to memorize the texture of Hux’s tongue.

Of course Ren isn’t making it easy for him, bucking his hips manically, and a few times almost plunging his cock into the sand. But Hux’s arm works, drawing out more deep sounds from him with his awkward tugs. Kissing Ren becomes more and more addicting, a troubling realization that befalls Hux.

Trembling, Ren croons in Hux’s red tipped ear. _“I really wanna fuck you.”_

Hux may already be servicing Kylo Ren in a tent on a nameless planet, but he certainly wasn’t expecting Ren to confess anything like that. He’s never considered it—and wouldn’t even know how that would _work_ —but the earnestness and heat in Ren’s wish has his own cock tingling again, and fear, confusion, and frazzled desire burning through his core. His mind is bombarded with what he can only imagine getting fucked by Ren would entail. 

At Hux’s unkempt projection, Ren spazzes, messing Hux’s straining hand with his come. Hux won’t admit it but he’d actually jumped, having never known the sensation of someone ejaculating all over his hand. Ren had released what must be quite an excessive amount, compared to his own release.

Ren rolls onto his back, catching his breath. Lolling his mop of hair along the sand. Hux crawls out of the tent to wash himself and the desire to lick his hand never rises, thankfully.

Grinning contently, Ren snuggles up against Hux’s side when he returns. He spiders his leg atop Hux’s, and instantly loses consciousness when he fits his nose in that warm crevice behind his ear.

Hux isn’t as lucky. His eyes flick to the top of Ren’s hair, his bulbous stomach, then to the dim seascape glittering under the stars. Ren’s giant head on his chest isn’t exactly comfortable but he doesn’t want him to move just yet. The sun’s hidden away and won’t return for several more hours, giving Hux time to weigh whatever is left of his pride and reason.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism welcome BUT for the record I completely feel like they would jerk each other off even after everything they did to each other and if any of you don't then it's too late, I already typed it into existence! :^) 
> 
> By the way, I really, really appreciate any and all comments! Thank you guys for reading. PLENTY more to come!! Including a more lengthy sequel! Hell yeha!


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

 

Ren wakes to small sounds. “What is it?” he murmurs, wiping away the drool encrusted on his cheek.

“You’re awake,” Hux groans, heels of his palms digging into his eye sockets. “It's awful. I can't get any rest. I'm going mad!”

“What, what’s happening?” Ren blinks blearily.

“The baby! He’s—” Hux cuts himself off with a groan. His skin might start splitting to make more room for it!

“Your agitation might be upsetting him.”

Hux limply pounds the meat of Ren’s shoulder. “Just go back to sleep. You're hardly helping.”

“He likes the waves, right?” Ren suggests, now alert.

“The water is too cold!”

“Then we can go back to the spring.”

“I can barely sit up, let alone walk. And I'll get all bloated and wet and then I’ll freeze to death afterwards. You’re so fucking _stupid_. Just shut up.”

Ren brushes Hux’s thoughts and knows that’s not how he really feels. At least, he thinks so. He can also sense how the movements of the child are truly unbearable, and longs to find a diversion for his pain.

“Come on. The spring will help. The sun’s almost out, anyway.”

Hux lets Ren escort him into his boots. Pathetically, Hux stumbles backwards onto his ass. Lovely, he thinks, when the sand jams up his crack where the shawl hadn’t covered. He can’t walk. He can’t sit back up. And Ren has the audacity to squat next to him and stare uselessly in remorse!

“Why’d you do this to me?” he wails, mourning his strength and his pride. “You’ve taken everything from me.” _And you’ve made me give myself to you, willingly_. Like everything else, Hux fails to control the surge of fresh tears. He’s hysterical, crying on a beach, sand up his ass with fucking _Ren_ staring at him.

They both know Ren never made Hux kiss him, or kiss him again, or give permission to touch him and cause him to tremble with want. Admitting this fact aloud will only make Hux fall deeper into despair, for which Ren knows from experience one can only rely on oneself to keep from spiraling further. Ren says nothing.

“Not like it matters.” Hux scrapes his scalp with his fingernails. “Soon I’ll be dead. Because of you.”

Not knowing how else to calm him, Ren leans forward to cup his tear streaked cheek. It’s oddly, humiliatingly soothing when Ren places a tender kiss to his brow, though he dare not admit it.

Ren stiffens, laughs, grins wildly to Hux’s miserable face.

Hux hates him. “What the hell—”

 “Over the crash site. Look!” He points towards the sea’s horizon. Surely enough, the little speck enlarges into a probe droid as it floats toward the ruckus ashore.

Hux bypasses relief. “Wait! It could be _them!”_ Whoever tried to kill them in the first place!

Ren’s waving arms fall to his sides. “Come on.” Ren drags his by his underarms to his feet. He anchors Hux to the tree line, clenching his jaw at his noises of pain jogging ensues.

“This is fucking fantastic,” Hux declares, abdomen spasming. And he’s still not wearing any pants!

Ren plops Hux down by a greenwood. “Don't move.”

When Ren marches back to the camp, the droid is there making its recordings. It scopes Ren, sending information back to its craft. Human male. Age 24-26. 1.86 meters tall. Hostile.

Ren longs for the full functionality of his lightsaber, tucked somewhere in the tent and broken beyond any use.

As quickly as it came, the droid ascends back to its ship past the low wisped clouds. The wind from the beach whips his hair around as he stands statue-still, staring at the spot the droid disappeared.

Ren’s blood runs cold when his eyes spot the unmistakable hull of a Republic transport descending onto their beach.

They’re either here to capture them, in which Ren would have to kill them first, and then somehow commandeer the mostly useless shuttle. Or perhaps to rescue them, where Ren could commandeer a starfighter if they’re transported to a nearby base. Killing them then would be an afterthought.

Three technicians without any apparent rank or designation clamor onto the beach, toting blasters on each hip. Ren’s forced to think fast, holding Hux’s and the baby’s needs high in priority. “Are you here to rescue us?” He feigns desperation. They’re getting off this planet with or without their cooperation.

“Who’s us?” One of the technicians brings a threatening hand to his hip.

Ren guides the trio to the tree line where Hux is crouched, face contorted in agony. “He needs medical attention.” They hesitate for only a moment before moving to carry Hux. Ren all but growls, “I’ve got him. Let us on board. Please,” he adds, bowing his head slightly to appear less menacing.

After they board, the transport ascends and one of the technicians removes her helmet, revealing he intricate braids that stripe her scalp. Human female, dark skin. “You two look like you’re a long way from home. The pod you crashed in was dislodged from a First Order ship. Were you captured?” Her accent is similar to Ren’s, Hux notes through his daze.

“Barely managed to get away,” Hux surprises Ren by speaking up. “Kidnapped. Experimented on. A nightmare, really.” He waves at his heaving belly for emphasis, and the technician’s eyes flash with horror. Ren supplies Hux with his most unimpressed look.

She clears her throat, looking ill. “So, is that— they _impregnated_ you?”

“Sort of. It’s his. Long story,” Hux grates. Ren nods in confirmation as coolly as he’s able.

Either those words anger the Ren-ling or transition to artificial gravity does as the ship ascends to what must me a Resistance or Republic vessel, and it writhes inside Hux who buckles and grips Ren with what’s left of his energy.

Ren palms the back of Hux’s skull, tugging him close. “Do you people have the equipment and personnel to deliver a baby on your ship?”

The technician looks from Ren to Hux, then back to Ren, growing a smile full of promise. “We’ll take good care of him.”

Hux can’t contain the pathetic mewl of pain and bruises Ren’s arm with the might of his grip. The pain must be unbearable, Ren thinks, because there’s no way Hux would be clinging to him like this if he didn’t want Ren to feel it too. That, or Hux is playing the feeble damsel to gain sympathy and defer suspicion from the Republic techs. Likely, it's a combination of both.

The transport docks into the much larger diplomatic vessel. Ren calculates that there are few smaller, heavily guarded starships, and their escape will be difficult.

“Over here!” the female tech shouts at the opening boarding hatch. No longer concerned with keeping up appearances, Ren follows the aids who guide Hux onto a gurney, glaring at whoever touches Hux where he doesn’t approve. Hux twists his hands on the rubber padding of the plank, eyes pleading.

Like a shadow, Ren looms over one of the medics who looks awfully young to be a trained professional. In the medbay, the technique the medic uses to insert an intravenous line makes Hux growl and wrench his arm away. Ren’s a second away from slamming the medic's head into the nearest wall of durasteel, having had plenty of practice with slaughtering fowl for Hux while in exile.

It’s the guilt that stops him from lashing when he recalls the time he had strapped Hux to a similar table. Forcing needles and probes into him, making him seethe with hatred and shame. The foreign weight of his guilt sits heavy on his chest.

Thankfully, Hux’s features melt to bliss as the anesthetic takes effect. “You'll need to wait outside. This is a sterile environment. The droids work better without extra bodies,” the nurse states, daring to usher Ren out with an impatient hand.

There aren't any observation ports so Ren relies on the Force to sense any fluctuation of emotion in the nurse and the vitals of Hux and the child. He sits still enough so that his resting heartbeat thuds in sync with Hux’s own.

It couldn't have been ten minutes before Ren’s peace is thwarted by a gang of Republic officials, eager to gain enemy intelligence.

“You must be the patient's partner,” says the leader the gaudy cape. Partner. Ren’s never associated with the term. “My daughter tells me you both evaded the First Order. Not an easy feat.” The man extends a hand, and Ren looks up—immediately ducking his head to keep the man from seeing how large his eyes bulge in shock. “Lando Calrissian.”

There’s only a fleeting, horrifying moment that Calrissian squints as if trying to read something small written on Ren’s forehead, but the smuggler-smile that blooms on his face lessens Ren’s concern. Calrissian must be going blind in his advanced age. Ren has little desire to remember their past encounters, long before the death of Solo’s son.

“Hux,” Ren blurts before he can stop himself, letting Calrissian shake his hand. Of all the names. At least he won’t forget it.

“A pleasure. Are you comfortable enough for a briefing?”

“Briefly,” Ren mutters. Calrissian cracks another smile at what he thought to be a joke.

He spins a tale about Hux getting captured, and how he heroically infiltrated and rescued him only to be thwarted by the gravitational pull of the closest system. Ren focuses on Hux’s presence behind him in the operating theater. Ren hankers to hear Hux again, complaining about some force of nature or something Ren said.

“But I’m afraid I haven’t got much useful information. For your Republic,” Ren concludes, feigning dismay. Hux would be ashamed of his lack of verbal manipulation skills, but he’s far too annoyed to care. How long does it take a droid to perform a cesarean, anyway? “How did you manage to find us?”

Calrissian squares his shoulders. “We have probes looking for First Order bases. We picked up on your distress call and made planetfall in hopes to find intelligence.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Ren bites, and Calrissian surprises him with a chuckle.

“Good thing we came just in time! We’re not planning on making landfall to Hosnian Prime until three cycles from now so you’ll have to sit tight until then.” Calrissian leaves Ren to his isolation, excusing himself to leadership duties and leaving Ren to regain composure. He must focus on formulating a safe, quiet escape before the ship makes it anywhere near the Hosnian System—the Republic homeworld.

Ren startles out of his meditation as the Force beckons the arrival of his son. He longs to witness him with his own eyes. Impossibly patient, Ren focuses on Hux’s steady vitals as the minutes feel like hours. Another door he hadn't seen before opens, trundling sideways.

“Mr. Hux?” asks the nurse to Ren. The nurse pinches off his surgical mask with a gloved hand. “Would you like to meet the baby? It's a boy.”

With trepidation, Ren follows the nurse into the small recovery room. The infant is making small, squealing cries as Ren circles the incubator.

“He's a healthy weight and size, and we haven't finished the blood work yet but he appears to be without ailments.”

Ren nods, running a long finger on the glass.

“I can take him out if you want to hold him.”

At the mere suggestion of cradling something that small and perishable, Ren bristles. “Better wait for,” a moment's hesitation, “my partner to wake up.”

The nurse nods, understanding the man's fear. Fatherhood is a tremendous responsibility.

The infant stops his squabbling for a moment, his newborn eyes unseeing. He’s too young, too fresh of a lifeform. Even settled, the infant kicks its little legs. Ren can’t imagine how something like that would feel growing inside him like a parasite, and sobers with appreciation for Hux’s bravery these past long weeks.

Ren is told he can wait in a nearby lounge. Of course Calrissian is waiting for him. “They grow up fast. Better appreciate the times before they start getting into trouble.”

“Hopefully that’s later rather than sooner,” Ren makes himself smile but it feels more like a grimace.

 Calrissian cocks his head. “What system are you two from?”

Ren clears his throat, formulating his lie. “Malastare. But we’re traveling merchants. Pissed off the wrong Order sympathizer and got us captured. I don't know much else, I doubt he does either,” Ren adds, eager to be left to his own devices.

Calrissian eyes him, deeply skeptic, and nods once. He leaves Ren to lie in one of the crew's common area, striding off to the main deck. “Naedie,” he comms his daughter from control, keeping his voice low.

_“Speaking.”_

“Do you have any general surveillance images of our newest passengers?”

_“Of course. Already ran the recogniscan through all known Republic databases.”_

Calrissian cracks a grin. Always two steps ahead of her old man. “Any results?”

A pause. _“These men aren't citizens of the Republic. I'll report back after we run them through any extraneous backdoor databases we can get access to.”_

“Roger that. Additional triggers for the search: Malastare, Hux.” He pauses, voice dropping an octave. “First Order.”

_“Affirmative.”_

Searing his glare into Calrissian’s cloaked back, Ren tiptoes back to the medbay, escape now the utmost priority.

Hux wakes up to the hum of machinery, alone and draped in layers of blankets. His eyes drift in hopes to land on Ren’s fluffy head somewhere at his bedside, but Ren is nowhere to be found. Numbly, he looks down at his stomach, inhaling to find it flat as the day before that idiot dragged him on this adventure.

He brings a palm to investigate the bandages. The incision must have been healed, he assumes, when the movement only jars his body with slight discomfort.

Where he might have felt relief, Hux only feels empty.

Hux eyes the opening door, and hopes to see Ren around the corner like he’d always had. But it’s the nurse he vaguely recalls from before the surgery, toting a bundle of blankets. Another careful stride and Hux swallows. There’s a little fist that pokes out, propped up through the swaddle.

It looks human, he thinks. Hux has never seen a newborn this close before. The nurse brings it closer, revealing all its peaceful facial features lax with sleep. The reality of it all barrages Hux, and he clenches his fists because he doesn't know what else to do.

“Are you ready to hold him?”

Hux doesn't hear the question, so the nurse repeats himself, patiently. The nurse is smiling, reveling on this rare instance in witnessing new life brought into the galaxy.

“I've never held a baby before,” Hux wavers on the admission, feeling like he’s a junior cadet again and having to admit his physical inferiority after he was unable to do as many pull-ups as other boys his age.

“The important part is your elbow. You have to keep it up to support the neck.” The nurse passes the little creature over and Hux does his best to keep the thing upright. He must have succeeded, for the baby remains snoozing. It’s lighter than he remembers, and smaller than he could have imagined.

Five fingers on each hand, no visible deformities. Fine wisps of light hair, barely there. Hux will have to wait until it wakes up to confirm his eye color.

He's stabbed with fear when the nurse leaves, though thankfully short lived when he returns pushing in an incubator atop a shelf, with several small jars of pale liquid on the next rack.

The nurse—Nurse Grahm, he learns—is halfway through explaining how and when to feed the infant when Hux panics, interrupting him. “The man I came here with. Where is he?”

“I'll see if I can find him,” he says, “while I do so, I advise you to let me set your little one in this case while you get more rest.”

“I’ll be fine. I won't be able to fall asleep until I see him,” Hux hisses, careful not to raise his voice.

The nurse raises his brow, oblivious to Hux’s true ruthless nature. “You need your rest. But I'll be back with more information on his whereabouts.”

To the nurse Hux looks like some worried sick civilian, yearning for his soldier to return. He needs Ren here so they can figure out an escape together! “If you knew what’s good for you,” Hux mutters.

Sensing Hux’s animosity, the baby wakes, startling him with dark blue eyes. He blinks, making a small gurgling noise. Looking nothing at all like the monster he felt like those long weeks trapped with Ren.

The baby starts whining, breaking out to a full cry, shrill against Hux’s keen hearing. Hux clamors for a bottle of the formula, holding it how the nurse directed. The baby suckles enthusiastically until the little bottle is depleted. Hux isn’t sure that he should be drinking this fast, but errs on the side of caution and allows the baby to begin on another bottle so he can be satisfied. Going hungry is no way for a Hux to start a life in this galaxy.

Hux counts the baby’s fingers and toes again. Ten perfectly proportioned digits and ten twitching little toes. The baby stops moving his lips on the bottle’s rubberish opening so Hux sets it down. Hux breathes in and out, attempting to calm his racing heart.

He could never quite bar his treacherous emotions, not like his own father always was able to on those rare instances he even had any. In an uncontrollable act of sentiment, Hux thinks of his mother. Not his father’s wife, but his birth mother, a teenager at the time of his birth. How he’d purged her existence from all known documentation, how in the first and last time he saw her face—smiling, youthful and immortalized in a printed photograph. Hux wonders if she’d ever held her son like how Hux is holding his right now.

The baby blinks at him and Hux blinks back.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LANDO!! Yeah Naedie is an OC and so is the kylux gayby :)


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

 

 

The door of the recovery room slides open, revealing Ren.

_“Where have you been?”_ Hux mouths scornfully. Ren absorbs the outrageous image of Hux with that grimace his face naturally rests in, cradling his infant son with a bottle.

“Are you able to walk?” Ren looms in, placing a hand on the baby’s head. Who doesn’t seem to mind. He stops sucking so Hux moves the bottle.

“I’m not sure.” Hux doesn’t really want Ren to keep touching the baby’s head, glaring at those dirty fingernails.

“We need to escape as soon as possible. The Republic officers are onto us.”

Hux all but growls. “What did you do?!”

“I don’t know how but they know we’re not citizens of the Republic. We need to go,” Ren says, tossing through a cabinet of medical supplies. “Here,” he turns around and extends his arms for the baby. “Just try stand. I couldn’t find a chair transport around here.”

“Are you going to be able to hold him properly?” Hux asks, needing an honest answer. “And why did you tell them we were? That’s something they could so easily check. You’re shit at lying.”

“I didn’t say we were. And yes, I can hold him,” he enunciates, carefully maneuvering his son in his arms. As if on cue, the baby whines, then spits up half of his lunch on Ren’s chest.

“How much of that did you feed him?!” Ren blames, attempting to steady the baby while Hux stifles a snicker.

“He’s your monster baby. He always has needed humongous portions so I let him drink what he wanted.”

“His genetic coding renders his growth normal once born.” Ren glares at him, hardly maintaining the menace he normally conveys cradling the little baby.

Carefully, Ren sets the baby down atop the nearby tray. He helps Hux off the bed with just as much caution.

“You’re just gonna leave him lying in his spit-up?” Hux accuses, gritting against the protest in his back and abdomen. While Ren often embraces pain, Hux’s relationship with it is one of utter frustration.

“I’ll take care of it,” he dismisses. “Focus on getting your balance because we’ll have to make a run for it once they discover I tampered with their shuttle logs.”

“Dammit, Ren. We could have been more subtle.”

“You’ve been out for two cycles. The fleet won’t be leaving for Hosnian Prime for another hour or so, and by then we want to be off this ship and far from where they can catch us.”

“Please tell me you have more of a plan.” Hux stands on his two unsteady feet, but even this post-operation weariness beats the violence of his pregnancy.

Ren stuffs the bottles of formula in a duffle bag, along with what he hopes are diapers and sanitary wipes. “I do, but you’re not gonna like it.”

Loud, boisterous sirens blare through the halls, causing the two day old infant to cry in panic.

“You can’t be serious, Ren,” Hux groans, haphazardly wrapping the baby in more layers of blankets. Ren passes Hux one of the two blasters he’d stolen the day prior, simple ones able to be used in one hand.

Ren swallows, longing for his lightsaber. It’s back on the planet, though it was for the best he abandoned it. It would be difficult to talk his way out of why he has a lightsaber seeing that he’s the one who eradicated all the Jedi in the first place. “I can assure you this is not my doing.” Figures these diplomats are caught in a disagreement, likely with pirates. With any luck it’s the First Order, though Ren doubts it. Sieges on heavily fortified, diplomatic vessels aren’t normally the Order’s method of attack.

Nurse Grahm makes his entrance, frenzied with terror. “You both need to stay put. We’re under attack!”

Ren thrashes the nurse against the nearest wall, breaking his neck.

Hux tightens his hold on the squealing infant, dabbing his spit up with the corner of a bedsheet. Ren still has the glob on his own shirt but he's already forgotten about it by now. “What the hell is going on?”

“You heard. We’re under attack,” Ren quips, slinging the duffle over his shoulders. His fingers are gentle, unyielding, when he cradles the back of Hux’s skull. “Stay behind me.”

Hux nods, already feeling better with the weight of a blaster in his hand. The baby is small enough that Hux can carry him with one arm, made easier with a sling Ren fashions from a torn sheet.

“I mean it. Stay right behind me.”

Hux shivers, longing for proper attire. The medical scrubs will have to do. The baby's cries are muffled by Hux’s chest, and Hux attempts to soothe it by bobbing on his knees in a rocking motion. Ren peers out the door for intruders, blaster ready to fire.

“Is it us?” Hux asks, hopeful.

Ren glares, suggesting Hux shut up. _My guess is some enemy of the Resistance. Or whoever tried to kill us in the first place._

Hux clenches his jaw around the discomfort he feels from Ren talking in his mind like that.

Ren receives more contempt from Hux, and curious white noise from the child, his newly formed mind unable to contribute to the conversation.

Several groups of Republic accomplices shuffle past Ren without looking in his direction. The crowds from the halls eventually thin, most personnel either being led to evacuate the area or man the weaponry. Ren makes for his exit with Hux following closely. The infant is making too much noise so Ren sends a gentle suggestion for him to sleep, deep enough for his cries to cease altogether.

“The docking bay is this way,” Ren murmurs.

The sound of blaster fire vibrates through the halls and Ren does his best to navigate around it. It’s not until the unmistakable droning of a lightsaber—paired with that same black, barren void he sensed back at the cloners’ compound—that Ren blanches with fear, so starkly that Hux can sense the change through his meagre Force sensitivity and intuition. “Just keep moving,” Hux orders, nudging the barrel of his blaster into Ren’s back as if he were his hostage.

The threatening sounds get closer with every step they take. The second Ren turns to retreat back through the halls they’d covered, a door shucks open to reveal Calrissian, armed with a deadly bowcaster. For a moment the sweltered man looks as if he’s about to shoot them, but Ren isn’t taking the chance of having a bolt hit the baby so he resists shooting first.

A wave of dark energy sweeps Calrissian onto his back, emitting from behind him. Immediately, Ren begins shooting his blaster at the cloaked figure—approximately human with a sharp gauntness to his features. His eyes glow with their imperceptible blackness stark against his jaundiced skin.

Expertly the man deflects his bolts with his red lightsaber. Infuriated, Ren casts a powerful whip of energy, knocking the enemy on his back.

Calrissian sits up, staring at the stumbled cloaked man then back at Ren with mute disbelief. “Ben?!”

Ren growls, chucking another wave in Calrissian’s direction.

“Get him out of here,” Ren hisses behind him to Hux who burns Ren with skepticism.

He takes the bag of supplies, looping it around his free shoulder. The surgical wound on his stomach throbs in protest at the added weight. Adrenalized, he powers through the discomfort. “You sure you can handle this?”

Ren glares at him hotly, wasting his attention on Hux when he should be focused on the two antagonists in front of him. Hux hurries backwards, supporting the infant’s small body as he manages a jog towards one of the elevators. Hopefully it’s still functioning.

It’s curious how this man doesn’t feel like quite the dark torrential void up close and personal. Ren makes for his saber from across the way, only to be swallowed by a violent pulse. Not of the Force, but of something manufactured, something alien. Ren collapses and scrambles for some leverage against the wall, blinking away dark spots that cloud his vision. Foolishly he drops his blaster, but in his Force-blindness the weapon is lost to his mind.

Force inhibitors—a weaponized variety. This is probably why the pathetic man didn’t try and kill him in combat back in the Outer Rim. He’s nothing more than a coward, having little understanding of how to wield the Force and wouldn’t have stood a chance without bombs, droids, and Force inhibitors. Ren will gladly finish him off. If he could just get up from this damned wall!

Ren’s fist collides in a viciously with the floor as the delirium of the Force inhibitor blast—one unlike he’s ever experienced—takes its effect.

The recycled air vibrates with the hum of the now burning lightsaber, inches from Ren’s face. Ren blinks up at his assailant, who he only recognizes once he hears that distinctive smoky drawl.

“It’s been a pleasure to defeat you, Kylo Ren,” snarls his Rogue Knight Dyem, unmasked and aiming right for his throat. “This all has been incredibly entertaining, _Master_. Let’s make a deal. If you tell me where that skinny little rat colonel and your mutant spawn are I’ll be kind enough to kill them quickly.”

“And if I don’t?” Ren chokes out. Dyem strikes him for his efforts, cutting Ren’s cheek on his own teeth with its vigor. Blood fills his mouth, dribbling down his slackened jaw.

“I’ll gut you like a fish right here. And when I find them I won’t be as generous,” Dyem hisses. Ren seizes the opportunity of his close proximity and kicks Dyem’s legs out from under him. He barely misses losing his hand from the heat of the saber, opting for grazing his knuckles and singing the flesh to the bone.

Hux cradles the days old infant to his chest, carefully shuffling through the halls evading Resistance scum and whatever enemy is infiltrating their vessel. The strap of supplies digs painfully into his bony chest.

The blaster fire has stopped. It’s possible that's a good thing.

“Hey!” one of the human technicians shouts from behind him. “Who are you? Is that a baby?!” squawks the man, and Hux holds the infant closer to his chest.

“I just gave birth to him! And you might want to show me the quickest way out of here because this artificial gravity is wearing me down.” He feigns faintness. Hux follows the technician’s guide in hopes he'll lead him to the docking bay.

The technician’s eyes bug out. He’s convinced that the galaxy will never stop surprising him.

His gut swims with dread having sensed great levels distress from Ren. Hux focuses on the task at hand. Get himself and the baby out of this awful ship.

_Hux!_ shouts a desperate Ren into his mind emanating from what Hux can only describe as an abysm from within the ship itself. Has Ren slipped through a crack in space-time? What does Ren expect him to do with their little monster baby strapped to his chest?

They grapple against the wall—Ren forcing the lightsaber away from his face and Dyem fighting his weakening grip as he strangles Ren with his other hand.

Ren gurgles around the iron grip of his hand. Dyem has always been physically imposing, strength coveted through rigorous training regiments, but it’s apparent he’d undergone bionic enhancements. He must have known more about the Force then he’d ever let on, having successfully hidden his plans of treachery and disguise from Ren and Snoke this entire time.

“Snoke’s used you, the son of a smuggler, you and that bastard colonel. He knows you to be weak, emotional, manipulable. Your ineptitude makes you a poor excuse for an apprentice. I’m just saving Snoke the legwork in finishing you off. But the bitch of it is Snoke thinks it wise to take on a more impressionable Skywalker apprentice, one groomed from birth. As if that’ll end well.” The hand crunches his trachea agonizingly with no hope of letting up.

He’s wrong. The baby isn’t Snoke’s. It’s his! Ren struggles against the hand around his throat and the saber, fighting against Dyem’s lies.

“Your bloodline is doomed to fail. History will repeat itself. I’ll make damn sure the Skywalkers end with you—” Ren chokes, gasping final breaths, capillaries in his eyes beginning to burst—“and that abomination!”

Like an answer to a prayer, the pressure on his throat is released as Dyem is propelled by exceptional beam of blaster fire, square in the back of his head. Ren coughs violently, letting the air return to his lungs. He shoves Dyem’s lifeless body off of him and scrambles for the lightsaber. Only to have it shot out of his hand from the powerful bowcaster.

Lando Calrissian stands on unstable legs, having no doubt broken a rib or three after Han’s damn kid threw him into the wall. “Not so fast, Ben,” Calrissian grunts. “I may be old but I’m not a fool. Stand up slowly. Hands on your head. You’re coming with me.”

The Force inhibitors are still activated so Ren has no choice but to cooperate. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tries, his voice roughened with injury. With any luck Hux has already commandeered a transport and is heading back to the Finalizer.

“Don’t play stupid. You caused a lot of people I care about a lot of pain and a lot of suffering. I’m taking you home.”

“He’s coming with me!” shouts Hux, one arm around the baby, one pointing his blaster at Calrissian’s head.

Ren regards him half with relief and half infuriation. “You were supposed to be long gone.”

“Too bad you needed rescuing,” Hux quips.

Calrissian eyes Hux and the baby wearily, bowcaster still trained on Ren. “What’s your business out here? Who are you?”

“All you need to be concerned with is getting us off this ship. Take us to the docking bay. Any trouble and I’ll blow your head off.” Hux doesn't leave room for argument.

Calrissian sets his bowcaster on the floor, not taking any chances with that innocent baby in his arms. The sneering red-haired man is shielding the infant but Calrissian wouldn't be able to live with himself if he even came close to injuring it.

“Now take us there. Any sign you're leading us into a trap, you'll regret it.”

Ren picks up the lightsaber, a simple charcoal cylindrical design, with his good hand. Pleased with the reflective red glow, he slashes at Dyem’s corpse, at his tool belt, his wrists, until the void disappears and he's connected with the Force once more.

“Satisfied?” Hux remarks, waiting patiently with his blaster aimed at Calrissian, who curls his lip at Ren’s destruction.

“Very.” Ren deactivates the saber.

“Go on,” Hux jabs the blaster for emphasis. Calrissian glares but hustles along. The baby makes a small noise and Hux shushes him with an inaudible comment. He doesn't catch how Ren’s lips tug into a smirk at his uncharacteristic gentleness through all the violence.

“Hold up. We're not gonna make it without somebody stopping us,” Calrissian advises at the breach of the busy hangar.

“You're the captain, aren't you?” Ren scoffs.

“Hell yeah, I am. But the two fugitives holding me hostage might bring the attention you don't want.”

“Just focus on getting us the transport,” Hux sneers, unable to comment on the ridiculousness of a Resistance criminal calling them fugitives.

Calrissian manages to spot an unattended shuttle. “Ren,” Hux orders, “Go aboard and dismantle the tracking system. And you, don't you move or think about signaling anyone.” He conceals his blaster through one of the baby's blankets, careful not to come close to any of his little appendages.

“I'm not leaving you alone where one of these Resistance cowards can shoot you in the back,” Ren argues, uncaring that Calrissian saved his life using that very technique.

“We're not gonna get very far if they can track us!” hisses Hux. The baby whines again.

“I'll stay out here. You go, get it ready.” Ren fists Dyem’s lightsaber hilt.

Hux huffs and climbs aboard. He won't dare set the baby down until they're in the safety of hyperspace. Calrissian’s eyes widen when his daughter sees him, trotting over with her blaster on her hip.

“What's going on?” Naedie demands, brow pursed with concern.

Calrissian’s eyes flick down where Ren is fingering the saber’s trigger, hidden from Naedie's line of sight. “Nothing Naedie. Go back to your station. Alert Control that the threat has been neutralized.”

Naedie studies her father and then back to Ren, hand twitching on her blaster.

“Go. Now.” Lando Calrissian didn't make it this far in the Resistance taking chances testing the crazed brutality of dark lords of the First Order. And damn sure not when his daughter's life is on the line.

Naedie, the rebel, unholsters her weapon as fast as her old man taught her and aims for Ren’s chest. “Who are you?”

_It's ready,_ Ren hears the projection, appreciating Hux’s cleverness. Ren casts the sabers beam across his chest and deflects the bolt Naedie shoots right into the durasteel flooring. The bolt catches the attention of the dozens of armed Resistance fighters who immediately break into formation with their blasters. Ren deflects the bolts, aching to slaughter Calrissian so that Organa or Solo will never learn he's still alive.

But Hux and the child won't be able to make it out of the hangar if he starts decapitating. The rationalization in his actions is startling.

Ren clamors aboard the closing port, but not before one of Naedie’s bolts graze his thigh.

“Don't shoot!” Calrissian bellows, waving his arms to his fighters gearing up more damaging weapons. “There's a baby on board! Don't shoot!”

“What in the hell was that?!” Naedie barks at her father, glaring at the transport that's taking off and out of the bay. “Who were those men?” And that baby? None of this is making any sense!

“The First Order,” Calrissian enunciates like a curse.

“The First Order sent pregnant terrorists to steal our ships?” Naedie shakes her head, bewildered.

“Get me General Organa on the comm.”

“You think they'll come back?”

“No. I fear that they won’t,” he admits gravely, heading to Control. “Time to open up old wounds.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes Dyem is another OC, don't kill me :^)
> 
> Only a few chapters to go! Thank you for reading!!


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

Cruising through hyperspace towards the direction of the last system the Finalizer was orbiting, Ren allows himself a sigh of relief. They had to make a quick getaway and can change course once Hux calls the Finalizer for new coordinates if need be. But Hux has his hands full at the moment.

The baby is full on bawling, his newly formed lungs shrill within the confines of the shuttle. “Ssh,” Hux attempts to soothe.

Ren limps over to the commotion. His hand stings with burns in need of immediate medical attention. Ren hobbles to Hux, tearing open the bag of supplies for bandages and bacta salve.

Hux quiets when he sees the extent of Ren’s injuries. The infant mutters softly and chews on its little fingers in what Hux thinks is his attempt to be respectful. “That looks awful.”

“Yeah, doesn’t feel so great.”

“Want me to have a look?”

Ren regards him, skeptical. “I’m afraid simply scolding the wound won’t make much difference.”

It only takes a moment to realize Ren’s teasing him by that barely-there smirk. Hux rolls his eyes to hide his mirth. “Hold him with your good arm and I’ll at least wrap it up for you until we can get it looked at.”

Together they sit cross legged on the middle of the floor. Hux doesn’t know about the blaster bolt marring his thigh until Ren scrunches his nose at the simple movement. Hux wrinkles his brow. “I’ll look at that as well.”

Carefully, Ren takes his son, cradling him in one arm. He extends his injured hand towards Hux.

“What in the—how do you still have use of your fingers?” Hux gawks. There’s a chunk missing from his hand!

“Not sure if I do,” Ren admits, stifling a whine when Hux dabs his sore with antiseptic. Hux coats the wound in bacta, graciously dulling the pain, and wraps the self-adhering gauze around his knuckles similar to how Ren would fashion tape to his knuckles before a sparring match.

“We’ll be sure to have it properly tended to back on our ship,” Hux advises. The baby whines but Ren doesn’t respond to him.

Ren pets the skin of Hux’s wrist with the fingers of his damaged hand because Hux is close and has soft extremities. It’s satisfying to observe the delicate nature of Hux, so often overlooked due to the brutal demeanor he projects. Not very long ago Ren had every desire to test the physical limits of those bony wrists, slim forearms, and pointed elbows, but that’s a desire he no longer carries.

“How’s your incision?” Ren asks, eyes flicking low to Hux’s abdomen.

“Well, it isn’t bleeding. The skin’s healed but my guts still feel all stretched and raw.”

“That’s good.”

“Have you contacted our fleet?” Hux presses, after a beat.

Ren pets the thin skin of Hux’s lip with the thumb of his injured hand. Good thing he still has the range of motion to indulge in their proximity. “I was gonna wait for you to do that.”

“So you’re saying we're beaming aimlessly through the galaxy?” Hux says with snark, letting himself be touched.

“More or less. You were occupied.” The baby hums to remind his parents he exists.

“I'll get to it before we crash on another nameless planet.”

 _That wouldn't be so bad._ The thought appears in Hux’s mind but it isn't his own. Hux frowns. He doesn’t know what to say to that.

His chance to acknowledge Ren’s confession is gone when Ren pulls him close for a kiss. Hux’s poisoning from the sun seems to still be in effect, so he lets him.

Ren transfers the taste of blood into Hux’s mouth, softly nibbling the swell of his bottom lip.

“Do you really hate me?” Ren can't stop himself from mumbling this awful, idiotic question.

Hux eyes him curiously, as if Ren began speaking some alien tongue. “Don't ask questions that you already know the answers to. It's unbecoming.”

After Hux bandages the wound on Ren’s leg, Hux transmits a recording to their fleet. Since their access codes have likely expired and they’re using Resistance transmission equipment, this will undoubtedly take a long time. Ren paces around the cockpit, his sliced open pants flapping off his leg. He cradles the foreign weight of the infant in his arm. The baby kicks its legs within his swaddle, blinking up at Ren’s inattentive face. In retort to Ren’s indifference, the baby whimpers and fills his diaper with urine.

Hux settles in the ship's singular cot. “Who was that man? Why did he call you ‘Ben’?”

Ren grows hot. “Someone I used to know.”

There's something Ren’s not telling him. “Is that your real name?” Hux sneers to Ren’s back. “It is, isn't it?”

When Ren had joined the command of the Finalizer Hux had done everything to research his background to find out exactly why Supreme Leader Snoke had held Ren in such high esteem. Ren, Snoke’s personal masked enforcer. It puzzled him to find there was nothing in regards to his background available. If today’s events are telling, there must be more to Ren than the First Order.

Instead of blowing up like Hux expects, Ren sets the baby into Hux’s arms. “You should clean him up. I think he just wet himself.”

“I see right through your shit,” Hux mumbles to himself. Ren’s occupying the pilot's chair, fiddling with the communication panel while Hux takes the baby. Surely enough, the disposable diaper his little torso was wrapped in sags with the evidence.

Hux has never changed a diaper before. Of course he hasn’t. It can’t be that difficult.

The Ren-ling looks at him, calmly chewing his finger in silent scrutiny as Hux fumbles with the supplies. “Don’t look at me like that,” Hux mutters to the baby. “I’d like to see you try.”

“What?” Ren mumbles from the cockpit.

“Focus on your task,” Hux snaps, embarrassed to be caught talking to the Ren-ling.

Ren leers at him, absorbing his painstaking efforts to properly clean the baby. He seems to be succeeding from Ren’s vantage point if the baby’s calm cooing is of any indication. Ren turns back to the monitors, eyes glazing over with the memory of his times aboard vessels like this as a child. He curses himself for the involuntary reminiscence, focusing on Hux’s soft mumbling.

Dyem’s lies resurface to the forefront of his mind about Snoke and his alleged dislike for him. Snoke had always been constructive in his criticism. If anything he was more disrespectful towards Hux.

Ren peeks back over his shoulder at Hux looking endearing with the baby in his arms. Snoke wouldn’t lie to him about his true plans for their baby—to train him from birth himself. The baby is his. Hux’s. Snoke wouldn’t betray the bond of master and apprentice. Only a traitor like Dyem would do so.

However there’s no denying Dyem instilled the seed of doubt in Ren’s mind to pursue him even after his death.

After several long minutes Ren intercepts the transmission from the First Order. _“Colonel Hux. Hold for the ranking officer,”_ garbles an operator.

It's that weasel Mitaka. Bureaucracy at its finest. “ _Colonel. Good to hear from you. May I ask why you're communicating through Resistance transport?”_

“The colonel and I commandeered this shuttle in our escape from Republic captivity. Give us your coordinates and grant our signature passage to dock.” Ren ends his transmission. “This is Kylo Ren,” he adds gruffly. Hux’s little chuckle behind him doesn't go unnoticed.

The pause on the other end is no doubt Mitaka questioning whether or not to demand proof of his identity. Hux bends over Ren’s shoulder to add to the message. “This is Colonel Hux. Grant us access and give us those coordinates. Immediately.”

 _“Yes, sir,”_ Mitaka obeys. Shortly the coordinates come and Ren programs the navigation.

“Looks to be about two cycle’s worth of travel,” Ren says.

Tucking the freshly cleaned Ren-ling against the wall side of the cot, Hux focuses on Ren out if the corner of his eye. He’s staring at him down his nose. Hux doesn’t hate the attention. “What?”

“Are you tired?”

“Not particularly.”

Ren’s walking towards him now, brushing his dirty clothing with Hux’s cleaner ones. Satisfied with the arrangement of blankets, Hux turns in the steely trap of Ren’s arms.

This ridiculous man. They're both severely injured and he's attempting foreplay.

“I just want another kiss,” Ren murmurs. He's standing close enough so that Hux’s eyes have trouble focusing, seeing not one but two Rens layered over each other.

“Oh, I'm sure.” Hux cards his fingers through Ren’s bushy, black hair. Hux’s selfish indulgences will no doubt have consequences.

Looming in closer, Ren goes in for another kiss. Only to be stopped with a hand on his chest. “Ren—”

“ _Ren_ , we shouldn’t be doing this, kissing and such,” Ren squawks in a poor mimicry of Hux’s posh accent. “What- _ever_ will the Supreme Leader think of us?”

Against his will, Hux bypasses anger and laughs loudly in the confines of the transport. They’re too caught up in each other to see their baby perk up at Hux’s uninhibited noise.

Damn Ren, succeeding in being charming. Hux’s pride is evidently a lost cause if he finds Ren’s ridicule humorous. “You’re an idiot. I don’t sound anything like that.” He doesn’t!

Ren feels the need to entertain Hux after their daring escape aboard with the Resistance, and is glad he’s succeeded. Not as if Hux would ever admit that, but those glittering green eyes say all that needs to be said.

“I was going to say we shouldn’t be messing around with him just sitting there, helpless.” Hux grins in fondness over to the baby. He doesn’t realize he’s doing so. Ren is keen on that particular expression lighting up his face.

Ren passes a gentle sleep suggestion over to him. “Goodnight,” he says playfully to the swaddled baby, who drifts off into sleep again.

“You can’t keep doing that. He’ll be developmentally delayed because he’s being forced to sleep through infancy.”

“It’s the only thing I can offer him. I’d be a shit parent anyway,” Ren tells him cryptically.

He’s already a parent, one hundred percent by his own hand. The use of the hypothetical trickles worry into Hux’s mind.

Worry that he can visit after he deals with Ren.

He leans in to tongue Ren’s lip, who meets him halfway. The electricity in the force of it is compounded by Ren’s groans vibrating into his mouth. With deft concentration Hux moves his own tongue past Ren’s, who has the presence of mind to be gentle as he backs Hux up against the archway into the cockpit.

He bites and sucks at Hux’s neck enough that redness blooms in the skin, down to his clavicle and back up again to the other side.

It's then that Hux yearns for his full mobility so that he may climb this man like a tree without worsening his injury. Thankfully, Ren has some remarkable ideas that Hux can keep up with. He sneaks in one more taste into Hux’s gasping mouth, and falls to his knees.

Ren hisses at the agitation to his singed thigh and Hux tugs on his hair so that Ren meets his eyes, begging the question if he’s alright, and further, if he’s sure about doing what Hux thinks he’s doing.

Heedful of Hux’s surgical wound, Ren pulls his pants down by its elastic over his erection. The chilled air of the transport on his genitals make his arms draw in on himself. His hands fly back to Ren’s dark head of hair when the tip of his dick is consumed by the heat of Ren’s mouth and tongue. Hux groans an unintelligible string of words.

Ren’s done it—now there’s nothing stopping Hux from fantasizing about this moment every time he looks at Ren, at his mouth, even his wild head of hair. If Hux expects to perform his job properly, they’ll need to make sure Ren never takes off his mask.

Bobbing his head encouragingly, Ren urges Hux to orgasm. Ren makes no move to move off Hux, so Hux seizes, gripping his hair and jetting down Ren’s throat and tongue. The sting of teeth scraping along his shaft hardly dampens the sensation.

Hux whimpers an uncontrollable high-pitched sound when Ren teases the sensitive flesh of his softening cock. The sensation’s overbearing and Hux retaliates with a pointed tug on Ren’s hair. Not hard enough to make him bleed, just enough to agitate and get his point across.

Grinning lewdly, Ren gets to his feet to bracket Hux’s arms against his sides.

Hot sensations of _filth_ , _wrongness, perversity_ cut through his mind when Ren tongues into his mouth, passing a glob of his own semen through his lips. Hux seethes, wrenching him away.

“What in all hells is wrong with you?!” Hux growls. He tries to get his hand up to wipe away the taste of his spunk, but Ren won’t allow it.

“Give it a chance,” Ren breathes in his face. He leans back in, suppressing a chuckle when Hux conks his head into the wall to get away from him.

Hux’s heart is thudding around his ribcage like a trapped bird. He doesn’t squirm this time when Ren brushes their lips together. Beginning with a dry tantalization, then delving deeper when Hux yields.

Shivering against all of Ren’s massiveness, Hux closes his eyes and dares a consensual taste of himself. The obscenity of the act incites something within him, headiness that renders all his rationality useless. A feeling so naturally attributed with being close to Ren. A deep groan buzzes between them and Hux fucks his tongue deep into Ren’s mouth, chasing the high.

Just when Hux is enthusiastically reciprocating their fluid-exchanging kiss, Ren twists him around, dislodging his balance and concentration. Ren pulls Hux’s pants to his knees to expose his ass and thighs.

Hux doesn’t even consider stifling his protests. “Ren, I swear—”

“Just let me try something,” he mumbles behind him. “Spread your legs a little. Yeah, like that.” Hux hears the distinct sound of spitting and braces for Ren’s experiment.

The sensation of Ren's cock between the vee of his thighs lances a spike of adrenaline through his body. Ren grips his thighs together, his injured hand squeezing as hard as his uninjured one.

Teeth scrape the sun burned flesh of his neck and Hux hisses, pushing backward into Ren. He looks down at the curious sight of Ren’s cock popping in and out of sight between his legs. Several disjointed thrusts and Ren pulls backward, grazing his cock against the sensitive skin between Hux’s cheeks.

“ _Ren_ ,” Hux lets out in a shaky breath. That’s all it takes for Ren, who comes with a grunt and stripes down Hux’s thighs.

Ren allows Hux to turn around in his arms to look him. He needs the light behind Hux's eyes to burn this bright forever.

“I hope you know you’re going to be the one to clean this,” Hux chastises. As a reply, the simpering fool chuckles and kisses at his neck again.

After he gets his fill of Hux’s addicting skin—for the time being, at least—Ren obliges, laving a thin stack of moist sanitary wipes up and down Hux’s splattered thighs.

Later in the cycle Hux finds room on the bunk next to the baby to acquire much needed rest while Ren finds rest on the pilot’s chair. The baby’s face is calm with sleep. Hux doesn’t know how much of this is Ren induced. 

There’s no ignoring it now, his reckless infatuation with Ren. This has got to be the most selfish, witless decision he’s ever made. He’s always been an excellent risk assessor but now that their miserable adventure is wrapping to a close there’s time to screw his head back on straight.

If he is to be successful and to not cast an ill light on his father’s name, his frolicking with Ren will have to become a rarity if not cease altogether. Besides, he’d already tasted the forbidden fruit, got it out of his system in a flurry of bodily fluids and chafing.

Hux looks to Ren, snoozing in the pilot’s chair slumped over with his chin digging into his chest. Certainly not the posture of a man of commitment.

Besides, his hormones will eventually return to normal. And Ren won’t be able to hold their brief sexual traipses against him without incriminating himself. Ren may be an idiot but he’s got some sense. Barely.

The baby wakes, silently ogling his father with two blue eyes. Hux picks him up because he can, because he’s his. He’s more his than Ren’s, Hux is certain, after all the torture the little thing inflicted on him.

“How are you?” he greets the baby, attempting a sing-song baby talk. Nobody talked to him like that as a child, ever, so he decides it’s strange to start now and resumes his normal tone. But a hushed version of it for his two tiny ears.

Unable to contribute any conversation, the baby blinks up at him, pulling his lips apart and together again. Already miming his behavior. Hux will have to be very, very careful of how much time Ren spends with the baby if he’s already absorbing mannerisms. The baby won’t get very far in life if he starts behaving like Ren—irritable, belligerent. Arrogant yet immersed in self-loathing, a conundrum that sums up Ren. With the threat of these impending character flaws, the Ren-ling probably won’t even be able to graduate the Academy without direct interference from Hux.

“I don’t know what to call you, but there’s some time for that.” He has an idea for a name but had kept it deeply locked away in his mind where Ren could never read.

Hux can’t get over how small the baby is. After all that time of him clawing around inside him, he thought it would be bigger. Meaner looking. Not this innocent, soft, blinking thing with two little hands and two little feet.

In the pilot’s chair, Ren stirs. Hux bites his lip, praying to whatever is listening that he stays asleep. This last month has had entirely too much Ren. Now Hux is alone and no longer in excruciating pain, away from the sun and the suffocation of the elements. He can finally relax and gather his thoughts.

Not alone, the baby reminds him, waving a little fist in the air from his sheet. Hux beams. He’ll truly be a merciless one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go! Thank you for reading :))))


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

In their final descent into the Finalizer, Ren packs up the remaining bottles of formula. His gut tugs with dread at the sight of the broken into plastic cases of diapers and other infant care necessities. There’s something threateningly wrong with the picture they’ve painted together. As if they’d painted themselves into a corner.

Hux finds a jacket in the back so that he looks less ridiculous holding a swaddled baby in his wrinkled medbay clothing. He manages to tug the baby into his side inside the jacket, where only the most prying eyes could decipher his bundle.

It's rare for Ren to be seen by their subordinates without his cloak and mask ensemble. Hux can read how much this bothers him from the pointed look Ren gives the ground when they walk off the ship together.

Two troopers murmur something to each other over their transmitters and Ren turns around to snarl. He's not above physically punishing the soldiers.

“We can meet in my room after you bathe and what not,” Hux whispers, careful not to bring any more attention to them. Failing miserably.

“Why don’t I just come with you?”

Everyone keeps staring. He burns to shout at them to get back to work but that would probably only make things worse. “Do you want to get kicked off this ship?” Hux hisses, anxious.

Haughtily, Ren scoffs. There’s no kicking off Kylo Ren. “I should’ve known you’d be too afraid to do what you want once we were back,” Ren sneers heatedly to mask his bruised feelings.

“Unlike you I have a reputation to uphold.” Some reputation. More helmets turn towards the arguing pair. Some spectacle they are—dirty, disheveled, carrying a newborn. Do any of the troopers know what Kylo Ren looks like?

Regardless, Snoke will need an immediate meeting in the conference hall and there's no telling how he'll react to their mission failures, not to mention Dyem’s treachery. Ren yields, abstaining from acknowledging his heartbreak. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll meet you at your quarters,” Ren tells him, despite Hux’s protest.

It's strange being in full uniform after all this time. Hux’s coat feels like its iron infused, heavy on his weakened frame. Sensitive after his scrub, the skin on his cheeks warm with a healing tan. He didn't know he had this many freckles, absurdly longing for cosmetics to even his skin tone.

The little baby coos from the bundle in the middle of Hux’s bed. He might need changing again soon.

Hux’s eyes play tricks as he's caught imagining a nursery in his closet, a cradle and diapers and shelves of toys replacing the large coats and woolen uniforms.

Shaking off the hallucination, Hux ingests a tube of caloric supplement to stabilize his psychosis. Hopefully it’ll suffice for the meeting with Snoke.

Ren escorts himself in Hux’s room without permission like he does with everything else. Another helmet identical to the last is secured on his head, along with his long gown-like robe. “I'll monitor him,” he assures him through his vocalizer. “I sensed you were worried,” he adds unnecessarily.

The baby starts whimpering at the sound change of Ren’s vocalizer.

“Take that off.” Hux glares at him until Ren complies.

Ren’s hair is still wet from his shower. At least he shaved his face, however retaining the stain of overexposure to the elements, awkward tan lines where the dense chin hair once was. Though ridiculous, his burns are not nearly as bad as Hux’s, who is covered with little pale brown spots. Even on his ears. There’s no easy way to hide them, unless he starts wearing a mask like Ren does. That’ll be the day.

“Are you going to be alright for the meeting?” Ren purses his brow, looking from one green eye to the other.

Hux brushes him off, gravitating to the baby again. The Ren-ling greets him with a gurgle and a blink, and then starts kicking all four of his appendages when Ren looms over Hux’s shoulder. His little face twists at Ren’s opaqueness, whimpering in eternal confusion.

Hux ignores Ren. The baby might want to be picked up and rocked again, but he dares not attempt to do so. They have a meeting to get to.

And he certainly won’t play with the baby in front of Ren, who would probably gawk and try record him with a camera to capture Hux’s moment of weakness.

“Hopefully this will be quick. Your senses aren't as attuned as you'd like to think,” Hux says to Ren. Typical of Hux to devolve to ridicule now that they're back in the real world. Ren snaps his helmet back on but is careful not to say anything around the baby until they break the threshold of Hux’s rooms.

They walk in tandem to the conference hall as they’ve done many times before.

Hux tells Snoke select details of their mission, starting with the disaster at the cloners’ bunker. “Ren fought off our attackers, whom of which we later learned to be a traitor. One of his rogue knights. But we had no way of knowing they’d sabotaged our ship before we took off.”

Ren is careful enough to keep a steady gaze at Snoke’s visage, having learned long ago how Snoke condemns talking over each other.

“We crash landed back on the planet close to the equator line, and managed to find food and water until several weeks passed and we were able to find rescue. By a Resistance ship.”

It's then that Snoke brands Ren with his lifeless eyes. _“And what of your time aboard the Resistance vessel?”_

“We stayed aboard for a matter of days to give Colonel Hux time to recuperate after the delivery. And enough time to steal a ship and make our escape.” Ren pauses. “Had I been stronger I could have sensed Dyem's treachery long before our mission. If I may have your consent I wish to perform rigorous reconditioning and reaffirmation on the others so such a travesty may never happen again.”

_“You may do so. Any sign of disobedience requires immediate termination.”_

Ren exhales. His master's approval holds the highest form of gratification. Well, it’s a close second to one other thing that Supreme Leader would unquestionably disapprove of.

The Supreme Leader cranes his lithic head to Hux. _“Your performance was commendable, and this will not go unnoticed. You’ve given a piece of yourself to the First Order and have aided in performing what’s to be considered the first of many great awakenings in the Force. I have taken the liberty to inform your regiment of your most recent promotion. General.”_

Hux hadn’t expected a promotion! The pride rolls off of him in waves. “It’s an incredible honor, Supreme Leader.” Hux bows his head, face warming.

 _“The honor is mine, General. Now, leave us. Your mission is complete.”_ Thrumming with elation, Hux makes for the door.

Snoke regards Ren. _“Bring the child to me at once.”_

Hux freezes. He looks at Ren with eyes widening in irrational alarm. But Ren’s not turning around like he needs him to, keeping his helmet forward and disciplined.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux begins carefully, beholding Snoke’s visage above. “What will become of the baby?”

 _“It’s none of you concern,”_ Snoke punctuates.

Hux doesn’t take the hint. “I’m only asking because—”

 _“I know precisely what and_ why _you are asking!”_ Snoke bellows, curling one of his gnarled hands into a fist. _“Leave us immediately. I suggest you visit a physician on your way back to your post to take care of any remaining injuries and_ chemical imbalances _you acquired while in exile.”_

Hux stares wide-eyed at the shined flooring beneath him. He makes for the exit and Ren focuses on the succinct click of his boots in retreat.

 _“I’m entrusting you with bringing the child to our rendezvous. I sense our newly appointed general is already facing greater challenges with his newfound power. He’s now in a position where our arrangement is most promising.”_ Snoke pauses, Ren guesses for dramatic effect. _“I sense conflict within you, my apprentice. Noncompliance is ill-advised, if you are to complete your training.”_  With that, Snoke fades to emptiness.

He frowns from behind his mask at the space Snoke once was. The Supreme Leader was explicit—the baby would be _his_ to train. The confusion throttles him, destabilizing the pedestal in which Ren proudly holds his master.

Did he not think Ren would have complied if he hadn’t withheld his true plans? Was this another test? If it was, it would seem he’d passed. He’s not sure Hux had done the same.

Regardless, the baby’s only reason for being is to serve the Order and the Force as Ren and Hux have, and Snoke will guide him along his path as he’s done so for Ren. His and Hux’s joint control of the Finalizer is by no accident. Snoke calculates which relationships will produce the most effective results in the war against the Resistance. When Ren finishes his training, he can begin his own training of his son in the ways of the Force. This doesn’t constitute abandonment. He refuses to fall victim to the Skywalker’s habits of desertion. He’ll have the opportunity to expound upon knowledge, the way a father rightfully should. Later, when Supreme Leader Snoke deems it so.

Their fleet is no place for an illegitimate child. Ren heads back to Hux’s room to retrieve the baby.

He fails to intercept Hux on his way to Hux’s room. The halls echo with the lingering sorrow Hux involuntarily projects, staining the area with the lull.

Surely Hux would understand the stakes are high in the war against the Republic. That sacrifices have to be made. It saddens him—there’s no denying it—considering how well Hux responds to the child. But the Supreme Leader will never forgive direct insubordination from Ren, and certainly not Hux.

Perhaps one day Snoke will permit Hux to share some of his knowledge about battlefront tactics. He knows Snoke will never allow Hux to see the child if he devolves further into fret. The First Order does not tolerate sentiment that distracts from the ultimate goal, Vader’s true goal, uniting the galaxy under one iron fist. Besides, Hux is the model officer when it comes to the Order’s rules.

From the door—opened from the outside, meaning Hux will be alerted of his presence by the noise of the door alone—he watches Hux play with the infant’s feet. Not even a week old, he’s already trying to smile. It’s an awkward tug of his little mouth. Ren’s heart breaks watching Hux smile back.

Hux’s sweet, tragic expression drops to a scowl at Ren. “I thought he was to be your apprentice? Unless I heard incorrectly while you were sodomizing me with a droid.” His tone no longer carries any residual fondness.

“Snoke’s orders have changed. He’s to take him now,” Ren tells him through his vocabulator. The baby protests at the noise but there isn’t any time for comfort.

“You’re a liar,” Hux spits, acidic. "Master manipulator." Typical Ren. Nothing’s changed and it never will.

His mask disguises his flinch. “I can’t lie to you.” He means it. The baby whines at the mechanical voice of his mask, threatening to devolve to tears. Ren doesn’t consider passing a sleep suggestion to its mind. Not yet. The baby is concentrating on wrapping its tiny fist on one of Hux’s fingers, and he dare not rob Hux of this moment.

“Spare me. I’ve had enough.” This is all Ren’s fault. If it weren’t for him, Hux wouldn’t have yet another burden weighing him down. Ren did nothing more than force him through an emotional storm because it was beneficial for himself and his disloyal knights. For Snoke, that tyrant.

Ren’s crippled him, poisoned him with his deception. There was never any clarity in his decision making, his risk assessing. Hopelessly, Hux thinks of his mother again, how she ended up pregnant at such a young age. The whore probably wanted to keep the baby instead of aborting it to avoid shame and deceit, and was punished for submitting to the guileless, foolishness of her heart. Hux vows to not be as stupid.

Ren walks closer to Hux, still crouched over the gurgling infant. His nostrils flare around Hux’s resentment, and as usual it’s towards him. Back to square one. “You could come with me and we could deliver the baby together. I could tell Snoke you’re much better at caring for him than I am.”

Hux blinks, heart lurching. “Just go yourself. I have a job to do.” The Supreme Leader would have him terminated for his err of weakness, disobedience caused by an act of irrational sentiment.

Ren attempts to assuage Hux. “I know you feel connected to him, but it was never part of—”

“You have no idea _what_ I feel,” Hux sneers. “I’m returning to my post. There’s nothing for me here.” Standing up, back stiff as a board, Hux stalks out to unite with his crew on the bridge without looking back.

Bundling up the baby, Ren slithers out of the quiet quarters. The baby whines at the dark plates of Ren’s helmet, breaking into a full cry. He sends a suggestion for the baby to sleep for their long journey.

Hux skips medical and goes directly to the bridge, where several of his men and women greet him with proud smiles.

“Congratulations, General,” Petty Officer Mitaka salutes. Hux doesn’t realize he’s smiling and other officers are doing the same. The expression sits plastic. Manufactured. Appropriate.

Superiority eases the tension in his neck, stiff from his most recent and his final sloppy tumble with Ren. “Appreciated, Mitaka. I’ll need a report of our most recent Stormtrooper evaluations and anything else I missed in my absence. Including updates on our research and development projects.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

Hux leers at his lesser officers’ backs, diligently monitoring and operating like capacitors in a network of circuitry.

No doubt he’d be able to finish his father’s work, having fallen into his footpath so soundly. The Order’s weapons of mass destruction will ensure that nothing will stand in his way in uniting the galaxy, permanently. Efficiently. There’s no room for sentiment in intergalactic domination. He has all he’s ever desired, and most importantly Ren won’t be around to distract him. He’s in charge now. He can toss Ren wherever he pleases.

Between the heads of the officers and through the glass of the large windows of Control, Hux eyes the busy flux of shuttles and bay techs dotting the docking bay.

Someone calls for him but their request falls to deaf ears. Because down the platform is Ren walking towards his shuttle toting a bundle, its identity hidden from passersby. There’s no reading from Ren, no conveying of assurance or comfort. Which matters not. Hux doesn’t need assurance.

“Sir, are you alright?” The voice of a junior officer pipes up, wrought with apprehension.

“Fine as ever,” he believes, turning away from the window.

She bows her head in concern. “You’re hands. They’re bleeding.”

Hux glares down at his palms, at the array of crescent wounds oozing red. “Be sure to have those reports prepared.” He wears his gloves for this precise reason. He won’t forget them next time.

Turning away from his nosy subordinates, Hux trudges along the length of the bridge. “Out of my way,” Hux growls to a crowd of officers, brutish and unprofessional.

He marches to medical, every nerve ablaze. Against his ever-malleable will Hux’s throat closes around the sensation of Ren and his spawn disappearing from his scope completely, as they blast away to wherever Ren’s master has ordered them to go. The emptiness, the disjointedness, suffocates him.

Marching faster, his fingers split the cuts in his palms. The pain is a welcoming distraction. With any luck he’ll make a succinct recovery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES, I KNOW, VERY SAD ENDING BUT THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING!! I promise. We had to have bitter exes bc bitter exes is canon in TFA, c'mon y'all.
> 
> Thank you all for reading and commenting over these past several weeks!!! I'll be having the sequel up on the regular weekly schedule :)


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